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LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


/ 


VALLANDIGHAM. 


SPEECHES, 


ARGUMENTS,  ADDRESSES, 


AND 


LETTERS 


OF 


CLEMENT  L.  YALLANDIGHAM. 


r 


"Do  right;  and  trust  to  God,  and  truth,  and  the  people.  Perish  office,  perish 
honors,  perish  life  itself,  but  do  the  thing  that  is  right,  and  do  it  like  a  man." — 
Speech  of  January  14,  1863. 


NEW  YOKK: 
PUBLISHED    BY    J.  WALTER   &    CO., 

19  CITY  HALL  SQUARE. 
1864. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S64, 

By  J.  Walter  &  Co., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 
District  of  New  York. 


IN 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTICE. 


The  very  large  sale,  last  year,  of  'an  imperfect  compilation 
of  the  speeches  of  the  Hon.  Clement  Laird  Vallandigham, 
justifies  the  publication  of  the  present  fuU  and  authentic 
edition.  And  just  now  is  the  fitting  moment  to  offer  to  the 
public  the  patriotic  words  of  warning  and  wisdom  which,  for 
now  nearly  four  years,  have  been  not  only  rejected,  but  de- 
nounced as  "  treason."  Defeated  armies,  an  enormous  public 
debt,  and  intolerable  taxation,  a  decaying  commerce,  ruined 
currency,  and  bankrupt  country — these  are  indeed  severe  but 
most  instructive  schoolmasters. 

The  "Biographical  Memoir"  prefixed  was  prepared  by  Mr. 
Yallandigham's  brother,  and  is  accurate.  Every  statement 
in  it,  personal  or  otherwise,  can  be  strictly  verified. 

J.  W.  &  Co. 

New  York,  July,  1864. 


CONTENTS. 


*  •  PAOH 

BIOGEAPHICAL    MEMOIE, 11 


SPKECHBIS,    ETC. 

PO WKB  OP  THE  LbGIBL ATURB  TO  ALTER  LkOISLATITE  DISTRICTS 68 

Constitutional  Eefoem 77 

History  of  Abolition  Movement 97 

Akocment  in  Fugitive  Slave  Eescite  Case. 134 

Argument  in  Contested  Election  Case — Yallandigham  and  Campbell 157 

Speech  on  Contested  Election 169 

Bemakks  on  Impeachments •. 1S9 

"         "   THE  Tariff. 192 

Letter  on  the  Invasion  of  Harper's  Feury 201 

There  is  a  West  ;  for  the  Union  forever  ;  outside  of  the  Union,  fob  Herself. 205 

Newspapers — the  Mails. — Letter  to  Postmaster-General 225 

Bemarks  on  Death  of  the  Hon.  "W.  O.  Goode 227 

Bkmarks  on  Bill  for  Arming  Militia  of  the  States 230 

Bemarks  on  the  "  Hour  Rule" 286 

Bbport  on  the  Franking  Privilege 245 

Justice  to  the  North-West. — Bemarks  on  Motion  to  excuse  Hawkins,  of  Florida,  from 

"Committee  of  Thirty-three" 253 

Eesponbe,  upon  being  called  out  at  Serenade  given  to  Mr.  Pugh 263 

Eevolution  of  1861 265 

Letter  to  Hendrickson  and  Others 302 

Executive  Usurpation 806 

Bbmarks  on  his  Proposition  to  appoint  Commissioners  to  accompany  the  Army 324 

The  Tariff— Tea,  Coffee,  and  Sugar 326 

Charges  of  Disloyalty  Repelled 327 

Speech  on  the  "  United  States  Note"  Bill 340 

Address  of  Democratic  Members  to  the  Democracy 362 

On  Public  Debt,  Liability,  and  Expenditures 369 

Speech  before  the  Democratic  Convention,  Columbus,  O 384 

State  of  the  Country.— Speech  at  Dayton 397 

Address  accepting  Nomination  for  Congress 415 

Address  accepting  Cane  presented  by  Ladies  of  Dayton 417 

The  Gr.EAT  Civil  War  in  America 418 

The  Conscription  Bill — Arbitrary  Arrests 454 

Peace — Liberty — The  Constitution 479 

The  Right  of  the  People  to  Keep  and  Bear  Arms 502 

Protest  before  the  Military  Commission .505 

Address  to  People  of  Ohio,  upon  going  into  Exile 506 

Address  to  People  of  Ohio  upon  arriving  in  Canada 50T 

Letter  to  the  Democratic  Meeting  at  Toledo 510 

"  "  "  "  AT  Dayton 514 

"  "  "  "         at  Carthage 513 

Address  AFTER  Election  of  1863 520 

Addrkss  to  the  Studknts  of  Michigan  University 521 

Speech  aftek  uis  Return 52Y 


8  CONTENTS. 


S  XJ  P  r»  X.  K  ]M  K  N"  T . 

PAOB 

Benevolent  Institutions  of  the  State 635 

Patience,  Firmness,  and  Truth 686 

Retrenchment — Salaries 687 

Legislation— Its  Mysteries 689 

Sepulture — Comctories 689 

The  Public  Debt  of  Ohio— Repudiation 641 

The  Character  of  the  true  Statesman 642 

The  Mexican  War 548 

Slavery— the  Wilmot  Proviso — the  Union 646 

Political  Position  and  Principles 547 

The  Clergy  and  Politics 649 

Eight  of  Revolution—"  Dorrism" 649 

Conservatism  and  Progress— the  True  and  the  False 650 

Compromise  Measures  of  1S50 .*. 561 

Moneyed  and  Municipal  Corporations 552 

Campaign  of  ISGO 554 

Position  on  the  War,  April,  1861 554 

Private  Conference  on  the  War  and  Usurpation,  proposed 565 

Letters  to  Sabin  Hough 555 

Mason  and  Sliikll— the  "Trent"  affair 556 

"  Loyalty" — Patriotism 558 

Finances  and  Taxation 559 

Proscription — Redress 560 

Peace  Resolutions 562 

Invasion — Arrest — The  Times 664 

True  Position  and  Duty  of  Democratic  Party. — Letter  to  Sanderson 566 

The  Military  Commission— the  "Charge  and  Specification" 567 

Keception  at  Windsor,  C.  W 668 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

The  Union.     From  D.ayton  Empire 668 

Not  "  for  Peace  before  the  Union."    Card  to  Cincinnati  Enquirer 669 

The  Union — against  Bill  for  abolishing  Slavery  in  District  of  Columbia  569 

Soldiers — Pay — Pensions. — Note  to  Dr.  McElwee 569 

Laws — Rights — Duties — Reception  at  Dayton 570 

The  Sanitary  Commission. — Letter  to  McLaughlin 570 

Self-defence — Protection — Reprisals. — Letter  to  Hubbard  &  Brother 570 

Late,  grudging,  and  imperfect  Justice.    From  New  York  Tritwn 571 


PERSONAL    NOTICES. 

As  a  Member  of  Ohio  Legislature.    From  Ohio  Statesman  and  Cincinnati  Signal 572 

Speech  of  Janu.iry  14th,  ISC-V-Opinions  of  the  Press 578 

After  his  Arrest — Time  on  Vallandigham.     From  Springfield  Republican 576 

On  his  Nomination  for  Governor.    From  Albany  Atlas  and  Argus,  and  Boston  Post 576 

His  Personal  Appear.'ince.    From  Seneca  Falls  lieveiUe 576 

At  Niiigara  Falls.     From  New  York  News 577 

i  At  Windsor,  C.  W.    From  Plaindealer,  Sentinel,  and  Press ...  677 

i  Visit  of  Students  of  Michigan  University.     From  Hillsdale  Democrat 578 

;  Valiandigham's  Birthplace.     From  Wellsville  Pairioi 679 

•' The  Name  of  Glory."    By  Thomas  Uul»bard 680 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIE. 


"  Trnth,  in  some  age  or  other,  will  find  her  witness,  and  shall  be  justified  at 
last  by  her  own  children."— Milton. 


BIOGRAPHICxVL  MEMOIR. 


The  materual  family  of  Mr.  Vallandigham  (pronounced  Val/an'dig- 
ham)  is  Scotch-Irish,  his  grandfather,  James  Laird,  having  been  born 
in  the  county  Down,  north  Ireland.  His  mother,  Rebecca  Laird, 
was  born  on  the  Susquehanna,  in  York  county,  Pennsylvania,  and  still 
surviv.es  at  the  age  of  seventy-five,  residing  in  New  Lisbon,  Ohio.  She 
had  two  brothers,  Episcopal  clergymen,  and  one  a  member  of  the  bar, 
John  Laird,  who  died  in  1824,  while  an  Ohio  State  Senator  from 
Columbiana  county.  She  is  a  v/oman  of  superior  intellect,  strong  will, 
and  much  force  of  character,  and  of  singular  piety. 

Mr.  Vallandigham's  paternal  ancestors  were  Flemings,  the  name 
being  originally  Van  Landeghem.  One  of  that  name  was  one  of  the 
four  most  distinguished  Flemish  kniehts  at  the  battle  of  "  the  Golden 
Spurs,"  fought  by  the  "Lion  of  Flanders,"  near  Courtrai,  in  1302. 
There  is  still  a  village,  Landeghem  by  name,  near  Ghent,  in  East 
Flanders.  In  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  they  were  French  Protest- 
ants, or  "  Huguenots."  •  Michael  Van  Landeghem  emigrated  to  Virginia 
previous  to  the  year  1690,  an  exile  for  religious  opinion's  sake,  and 
settled  in  what  was  then  Northumberland  county.  He  became  a  con- 
siderable land-owner  in  that  and  the  adjoining  counties.  His  son 
Michael  was  born  in  the  same  county,  in  1V05,  but  died  in  Fairfax 
county,  not  many  miles  from  the  now  classic  stream  of  "  Bull  Run," 
where  his  son  George  Vallandigham  (the  spelling  of  the  name  being 
now  changed)  w^as  born  about  1736.  He  studied  law  in  Prince  George 
county,  Maryland,  where  he  married  a  daughter  of  Colonel  Joseph 
Noble,  whose  mother's  name  was  Dent  (of  English  descent,  and  one  of 
the  oldest  families  in  the  State);  and  about  1773  removed  to  what 
was  then  Youghiogheny  county,  Virginia,  near  Pittsburg;  where  his 
second  son,  Clement,  was  born  in  1778.  About  the  time  of  his  migra- 
tion West,  the  "  Logan  War"  with  the  Ohio  Indians,  broke  out ;  and 
from  that  time  till  Wayne's  victory,  in  1794,  Colonel  Vallandigham  was 
obliged,  with  a  brief  interval  now  and  then,  to  lay  aside  his  Blackstone 
for  the  rifle  or  the  sword.  He  marched  as  an  ofiicer  under  Lord 
Dulmore,  the  last  colonial  Governor  of  Virginia,  in  his  expedition,  ip 
1774,  against  the  Chillicothe  Towns.  In  1789,  having  meantime  been 
surveyed  by  Mason  and  Dixon,  a  few  miles  into  Pennsylvania,  he  was 


f 


12  BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIR. 

admitted  to  the  bar  at  Pittsburg.  He  zealously  supported  tbc  Federal 
authorities  in  the  "  Whiskey  Insurrection,"  and  a  year  or  two  after- 
wards was  beaten  for  Representative  in  Congress,  in  consequence  of  it. 
During  the  canvass  he  was  threatened  with  violence  if  he  should  dare 
attempt  to  ^pcak  at  a  certain  place.  But  he  went  and  spoke  unmolested. 
He  was  a  man  of  fine  personal  appearance,  particular  in  his  apparel, 
scrupulous  of  his  honor,  pious,  and  of  most  gentlemanly  address. 

His  son  Clement  was  educated  at  Jefl'erson  College,  Pennsylvania, 
graduating  in  1804.  He  was  licensed  to  preach  as  a  Presbyterian 
clergyman  and  in  1807,  emigrated  to  New  liisbon,  Columbiana  county, 
Ohio,  where,  .ifter  a  most  fsiithful  and  laborous  ministrj'  of  more  than 
tliirty  years,  he  died  in  October,  1839.  He  was  a  man  of  talents  and 
learning,  of  great  firmness  of  purpose,  singularly  conscientious,  and  of 
spotless  purity  of  character. 

Clement  Laird  Vallandigham  was  bom  in  New  Lisbon,  July  29, 
1820.  At  the  age  of  less  than  two  years  he  had  learned  the  alphabet, 
and  when  but  eight,  commenced  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek,  at 
home  ;  completing  the  usual  course  in  both  languages  before  he  had 
reached  the  age  of  twelve.  The  next  five  years  he  spent  in  reading  and 
study,  and  in  fishing,  hunting,  and  other  youthful  sports,  passing  little 
time  at  school.  Indeed,  nearly  his  entire  education  was  acquired  under 
his  father's  roof.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  entered  the  junior  class 
at  Jefferson  College,  Pennsylvania,  and  soon  acquired,  as  a  speaker  and 
debater,  a  high  reputation  in  the  Franklin  Literary  Society,  of  which 
he  became  a  member.  At  the  end  of  one  year  he  left  college,  and  in 
October,  1838,  took  charge,  as  principal,  of  the  "Union  Academy," 
Snow  Hill,  on  the  Eastern  shore  of  Maryland ;  many  of  his  scholars 
being  older  than  himself.  Here  he  remained  for  two  years,  spending 
his  time,  in  addition  to  the  discharge  of  his  resfular  duties,  in  close 
study  and  reading  (largely  oratorical  and  political),  but  enjoying  also 
with  zest  the  refined  society  and  elegant  hospitality  of  the  Eastern 
shores  of  Maryland  and  Virginia.  In  August,  1840,  he  returned  to 
New  Lisbon,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty  was  soon  drawn  fully  into  the 
fierce  contests  of  the  memorable  Presidential  campaign  of  that  year. 
His  first  effort  at  extempore  speaking  was  in  a  politicial  debate  at  Cal- 
cutta, in  his  native  county ;  where  he  spoke  for  an  hour  with  such 
success,  that  his  Democratic  friends  bore  him  off"  in  triumph  upon  their 
shoulders.     He  was  thenceforth  a  champion  of  the  cause. 

In  November,  1840,  he  returned  to  Jefferson  College  to  graduate; 
but  soon  after,  being  grossly  insulted  by  the  President,  in  the  progress 
of  a  controversy  which  originated  in  the  expression  by  him  of  certain 
political  opinions,  in  the  course  of  the  usual  recitation  on  Conswtu- 
tional  law,  he  demanded  and  received  an  honorable  dismission,  and 


BIOGKAPHICAL   ilE^tlOIE.  13 

returned  home  ia  the  latter  part  of  January,  1841.  Some  five  years 
later,  when  a  member  of  the  Ohio  Legislature,  he  was  twice  offered  a 
diploma  as  a  graduate,  but  refused  it.  Previous  to  leaving  college  he 
had  been  chosen  by  his  society  as  their  "  debater"  for  the  annual 
"  contest"  of  1841,  and  in  March  returned  to  discharge  his  duty.  The 
form  of  the  question  was,  in  substance,  whether  our  Federal  system 
of  Government  was  in  more  danger  of  perishing  from  Disintegration 
than  Consolidation ;  but  it  opened  up  the  whole  question  of  State 
Rights.  Mr.  Yallandigham  maintained  the  strictest  doctrine  of  the 
"  Resolutions  of  '98,"  in  the  boldest  and  most  decided  manner,  and 
"  lost  the  hcfnor,"  to  his  society.  But  nothing  daunted,  he  changed 
neither  his  opinions  nor  his  purpose  to  succeed  in  life.  His  argu- 
ment remained  for  several  years  on  the  records  of  the  society,  and  was 
much  admired.  He,  we  are  sure,  is  certainly  not  ashamed  of  its  doc- 
trines now. 

Returning  home,  he  began  the  study  of  the  law  with  his  eldest 
brother,  then  practising  in  New  Lisbon.  He  was  a  diligent  and  pains- 
taking student,  though  still  devoting  much  time  to  literature,  politics, 
and  oratory,  and  participating  in  the  election  contests  of  each  year,  not 
neglecting  maaly  exercise  and  sports. 

In  the  winter  of  1842,  borrowing  money  for  the  purpose,  as  he  had 
borrowed  also  to  defray  his  expenses  at  college,  he  went  to  Columbus, 
Ohio,  making  the  journey  in  a  hack ;  and  there  on  the  fifth  of  December, 
was  admitted  to  practice  in  the  supreme  and  other  courts  of  the  State. 
Returniug  in  a  few  days,  he  went  into  partnership  with  his  brother, 
who  at  the  end  of  a  year  retired  from  the  bar  to  enter  the  ministry. 
Mr.  Vallandigham  applied  himself  diligently  to  his  profession,  with 
such  success  that,  within  four  years  from  his  admission,  his  practice  was 
equal  to  that  of  any  member  of  the  New  Lisbon  bar.  But  he  still 
devoted  much  of  his  time  to  literature,  politics,  and  public  speaking. 
He  took  an  active  part  especially  in  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1844, 
yet  never  descending  to  either  rant  or  'vnilgar  denunciation. 

In  the  summer  of  1845,  he  was  und,nimously  nominated  by  the 
Democratic  party  of  his  native  county,  as  one  of  their  candidates  for 
Representative  in  the  State  Legislature ;  and  in  October  of  the  same 
year,  having  just  attained  the  constitutional  age,  was  elected  without 
opposition.  The  Legislature  met  on  the  first  da^  of  December,  1845, 
and  Mr.  Vallaxdigham  took  his  seat  the  youngest  member  of  the  body. 
Previous  to  leaving  home  he  laid  down  the  following  "  Rules"  for  his 
conduct  as  a  legislator  :  "  1.  To  avoid  interfering  in  merely  local 
matters,  unless  they  involve  a  grave  general  principle.  2.  To  avoid, 
with  persevering  resolution,  all  connection  or  mingling  with  the  petty 
factions  or  personal  jealousies  and  quarrels  of  politicial  friends ;  and  of 


14  BIOGUAPIIICAL   MEMOIR. 

foes  also :  if  ncceasary  to  act  in  any  way  in  tliciti,  to  do  it  as  an 
"  annuel  neutral,"  manifesting  at  the  same  time,  that  I  act  as  a  patriot 
from  a  sense  of  duty,  and  not  from  feeling  as  a  partisan.  3.  To  speak 
but  rarely,  and  never  without  having  made  myself  complete  and 
thorou"-h  master  of  the  subject-^80  that  when  I  rise,  every  one  may 
expect  to  hear  something  worth  listening  to.  No  error  is  more  fatal  to 
induence  in  a  deliberative  assembly,  than  the  violation  of  this  plain 
rule  :  '  Verily,  ye  are  not  heard  for  your  much  speaking.'  4.  Always 
to  bear  in  mind  the  dignity  and  responsibility  of  my  station,  remember- 
ing that  by  the  favor  of  my  fellow'citizens,  I  am  a  part  of  the 
government,  and  that  human  government  is  the  vicegerency  of  Heaven, 
and  the  highest  exertion  of  human  power." 

Mr.  Vallandigham's  first  effort  was  made  on  the  8th  of  December, 
upon  a  motion  to  print  the  reports  of  the  Benevolent  Institutions  of  the 
State.  The  subject  was  selected  by  him  purposely,  because  it  did  not 
involve  party  feeling,  and  the  speech  was  extremely  well  received  by 
members  of  both  parties.  On  the  first  day  of  the  session,  be  had  been 
appointed  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elections, 
and  on  the  9th  submitted  a  carefully,  prepared  report  upon  the 
question  of  the  eligibility  of  officers  of  the  State  BarA  to  a  seat  in 
the  Legislature,  maintaining,  in  opposition  to  a  majority  of  his  party, 
that  they  ^vere  not  constitutionally  disqualified.  Soon  after,  on  the 
18th,  from  the  minority  of  the  committee,  he  made  a  very  elaborate 
report  upon  the  question  of  "Legislative  Districts,"  in  the  Morgan 
county  contested  election.  The  report  attracted  great  attention  in  the 
House  and  throughout  the  State.  Hon.  Samson  Mason,  a  distininiished 
Whig,  who,  as  chainnan  of  the  committee,  had  submitted  the  report  of 
the  majority,  said  in  debate,  that  "the  report  of  the  minority  was  an 
able  one,  and  highly  creditable  to  the  talents  of  the  gentleman  who  had 
made  it."  And  Mr.  C.  C.  Haze  well,  then  editor  of  the  Ohio  Statesman, 
now  of  the  Boston  Traveller,  speaking  of  it,  said,  "  Columbiana  county 
may  well  be  proud  of  her  young  member,  who  has  already  achieved  for 
himself  an  enviable  name  as  a  debater,  for  skill  and  fiiirness,  and  as  a 
writer  at  once  powerful  and  dignified.  He  is  one,  also,  who  does  not 
think  it  necessary  to  disgrace  great  tsdents  by  buffoonery  and  immo- 
rality in  order  to  achieve  a  sudden  notoriety," 

On  the  30th,  Mr.  Vallandigham  spoke  briefly  in  favor  of  the  bill  to 
repeal  the  Ohio  State  Bank  Act — referring,  in  calm  and  determined 
language,  to  his  confidence  in  the  power  of  Truth,  and  his  readiness  to 
wait  patiently  and  even  long,  till  she  should  be  vindicated.  He  con- 
tinued to  take  an  active  part  in  all  important  debates,  carefully  observ- 
ing the  rules  which  he  had  laid  down  for  himself;  and  on  the  11th  of 
February,  in  a  speech  which  was  most  flatteringly  received,  defended 


BIOGEAPHICAL   MEMOIE.  15 

the  sanctity  of  cemeteries  and  other  places  of  human  sepulture;  and 
again,  on  the  24th,  in  an  elaborate  speech  against  the  Tax  Bill,  drew 
the  character  of  "the  True  Statesman,"  as  he  conceived  it 

Mr.  Vallandigham's  first  vote,  given  a  few  hours  after  he  was  sworn 
in,  was  in  support  of  a  resolution  to  open  the  sittings  of  {the  House 
with  prayer,  a  majority  of  his  party  voting  against  it.  Soon  after,  iu 
reply  to  a  member  of  his  own  side,  who  complained  that  he  (Mr.  V.) 
was  quite  too  courteous  to  the  Whigs,  he  said,  paraphrasing  Burke, 
"  that  he  hoped  always  so  to  be  a  Democrat  as  not  to  forget  that  he 
was  a  gentleman."  About  the  same  time  a  Whig  correspondent  of 
a  newspaper,  writing  in  reference  to  a  violent  speech  by  a  Democratic 
member,  said,  "  He  was  suitably  rephed  to  by  C.  L.  Vallandigham,  a 
young  gentleman  who  is  always  as  near  right  as  party  trammels  will 
permit  him  to  go,  and  sometimes  a  Uttle  more  so."  Thus  his  high 
moral  character  and  urbane  manners,  together  with  diligent  and  labori- 
ous attention  to  his  duties,  secured  ^;o  him  the  respect  and  good-will  of 
all ;  and,  entering  the  House  utterly  unknown  and  the  youngest  mem- 
ber of  it,  his  reputation  was  in  three  months  established  throughout 
the  State. 

Returning  ht)me  in  March,  1846,  he  resumed  the  practice  of  the  law 
with  redoubled  diligence;  but  in  June,  was  required  to  canvass  the 
county  throughout,  in  order  to  secure  a  renomination  to  the  Legislature. 
At  the  preceding  session,  Columbiana  had  been  entitled  to  two  mem- 
bers; this  year  to  but  one.  Mr.  V.'s  former  colleague  appeared  against 
him,  and  a  vehement  contest  followed,  the  nomination  being  equiva- 
lent to  an  election,  and  made  by  ballot.  The  cause  of  the  opposition 
to  him  was  this :  Some  two  years  previously  the  Legislature  had  passed 
a  so-called  "  Retrenchment  Act,"  reducing  all  salaries  to  a  contempti- 
bly low  standard ;  Common  Pleas  Judges  being  paid  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  a  year,  and  members  of  the  Legislature  two  dollars  (or  eight 
shillings)  a  day.  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  taken  some  money  with  him 
to  the  State  capital,  had  lived  "righteously  and  soberly,"  abstaining 
totally  from  liquors  and  other  similar  indulgences,  and  yet  had  been 
obliged  to  borrow  money  to  enable  him  to  return  home.  He  voted 
and  spoke  earnestly  for  the  repeal  of  the  "  Retrenchment  Act."  Fully 
aware  that  his  course  would  be  unpopular  with  many  of  his  constitu- 
ents, he  said :  "  Entertaining  these  opinionSj  and  believing  that  I  am 
about  to  do  right,  I  enter  fearlessly  upon  the  discharge  of  my  duty, 
satisfied  to  abide  the  judgment  of  a  constituency  I  am  proud  to  repre- 
sent. If  that  judgment  be  against  me,  I  shall  be  content;  having  still 
within  my  bosom  the  consoling  consciousness  that  I  dared  to  do  what 
appeared  to  me  just."  After  an  animated  contest  of  several  weeks,  Mr. 
V.  was  renominated  by  a  vote  of  two  to  one ;  and  at  the  following  Octo- 


16  BIOGBAPHIOAL   MEMOIE. 

ber  election,  in  spite  of  a  very  vigorous  opposition  by  the  Whig  party, 
vras  re-elected  by  a  large  majority. 

The  Legislature  met  on  the  7th  of  December,  1846,  and  Mr.  Yal- 
LANDiGHAM  was  Complimented  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  his  party  for  ' 
Speaker.  ^The  session  was  marked  by  the  discussion  of  three  most  im- 
portant subjects,  Mr.  V.  taking  a  leading  part  as  to  all. 

To  the  prosecution  of  the  war  with  Mexico,  then  vehemently  op- 
posed by  the  Whig  party,  he  gave  an  earnest  support.  But  in  the 
resolutions  which  he  ofiered  on  the  15th  of  December,  he  took  care  to 
estabUsh  the  grounds  of  his  support,  declaring  it  "  a  war  brought  about 
and  commenced  by  the  aggressions  and  acts  of  Mexico;"  "a  constitu- 
tional tvar ;"  "  a  war  carried  on  in  pursuance  of  the  Constitution  and 
laws  ;"  and  a  war  the  object  of  which  was  not  conquest  and  subjuga- 
tion, but  "  a  speedy,  honorable  peace^  These  resolutions  he  supported 
in  a  strong  speech;  and  being  assailed  personally  in  reply  by  a  Whig 
member,  he  retorted  sharply  in  a  second  speech  of  considerable  length, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  answered  the  objection  that  the  Legislature 
was  intermeddling  in  that  which  did  not  concern  it;  saying  that  "as  a 
friend  to  our  peculiar  system  in  its  true  spirit,  and  as  a  State-Rights 
man,  he  would  be  sorry  to  see  the  day  when  the  iadividual  States 
should  cease  to  feel  the  deepest  solicitude  in  the  acts  of  the  Government ' 
of  the  Union." 

At  the  same  session,  the  "  Missouri  Question"  was  revived  in  the 
form  of  the  "  Wilmot  Proviso,"  or  proposed  exclusion  of  Slavery  from 
the  Territories.  In  fourteen  years  the  agitation  terminated  in  Civil 
War.  On  the  16th  of  January,  resolutions  in  favor  of  the  "Proviso" 
were  introduced  by  a  Whig  member  from  the  "  Western  Reserve." 
Mr.  Vallandigham  promptly  moved  to  lay  them  upon  the  table,  which 
was  done.  A  few  days  later,  being  called  up  for  discussion,  he  opposed 
them  in  an  impassioned  speech  (briefly  and  imperfectly  reported),  declar- 
ing that  the  agitation  could  result  only  in  civil  war  and  disunion,  and 
that  he  had  spoken  with  great  earnestness  and  feeling,  "  because  he  felt 
called  upon,  as  a  patriot  and  citizen,  to  resist  and  expose  every  measure 
which  might  work  incalculable  mischief,  not  only  to  ourselves,  but  to 
generations  yet  unborn."  He  further  declared  that  whenever  any 
question  might  arise,  involving  the  Union  in  the  alternative,  he  would 
go  with  his  might  on  that  side — on  the  side  of  the  Union,  now  and 
forever,  one  and  inseparable.  During  the  session  two  several  petitions  . 
were  presented  by  Whig  members,  praying  the  Legislature,  because  of 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  to  "  declare  the  Union  dissolved,  and  with-  . 
draw  the  Ohio  Senators  and  Representatives  from  Congress."  Mr.  V- 
voted  for  the  motion,  in  each  case,  to  reject  the  petition. 

But  his  ablest  speech  at  this  session  was  made  in  support  of  his  bill 


BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIK.  17 

to  provide  for  calling  a  Convention  to  amend  the  State  Constitution. 
The  bill  received  a  majority,  but  not  a  two-thirds  vote  as  required,  and 
therefore  failed ;  but  the  speech  attracted  much  attention  throughout 
the  State,  and  ultimately  led  to  the  passage  of  the  bill  at  a  subsequent 
session. 

Taking  an  active  part  upon  all  important  questions,  Mr.  Vallandig- 
HAM  again  found  it  necessary  to  separate,  now  and  then,  from  his  party 
friends.  Upon  one  of  these  occasions — on  a  bill  to  promote  the  cause  of 
popular  education,  in  which  he  took  a  deep  interest — he  said  "  he  was 
sorry  to  part  comjjany  with  them  on  any  question ;  but  was  not  afraid 
to  vote  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  conscience.  He  had  stood  upon 
the  floor  before,  and  was  ever  proud  to  stand,  even  in  a  minority,  when 
he  could  feel,  as  he  now  did,  that  he  stood  on  the  vantage-ground  of 
truth." 

Upon  the  question  of  the  so-called  "Black  Laws,"  relating  to  the 
disabilities  of  negroes  and  mulattoes,  Mr.  V.  voted  against  their  repeal, 
but  supported  a  bill  to  submit  the  question  to  a  vote  of  the  people ; 
expressly  declaring  that  he  so  voted  because  the  measure  "would  result 
in  the  most  etFectual  putting  down  of  this  vexed  question  for  perhaps 
twenty  years  to  come.  It  would  probably  fall  out  as  the  question  of 
negro  suffrage  in  New  York,  where  the  people  had  voted  against  it  by 
a  majority  of  fifty  thousand." 

Throughout  this  his  second  session,  Mr.  Vallaxdigham  maintained 
and  added  to  the  reputation  which  he  had  acquired  at  the  first.  A 
gentleman  (then  as  now  an  eminent  lawyer  and  politician),  writing  to  a 
Cincinnati  neutral  paper,  said  of  him,  in  March,  1847  :  "  Although  the 
youTisrcst  member  of  the  Leoislature,  he  came  to  be  regarded,  Inngr  bo'ori^ 
the  close  of  his  first  session,  as  the  leader  of  his  party  on  the  floor, 
which  position  he  maintained  during  the  late  short  and  active  session. 

Courtesy  and  urbanity  in  public  as  w^ell  as  in  private  life, 

have  secured  for  him  the  esteem  of  all  who  know  him,  without  regard 
to  party ;  while  his  abilities  have  commanded  their  respect.  In  all  his 
intercourse  with  men,  there  is  evinced  a  frankness  and  an  obliainsr, 
generous  feeling  which,  above  all  other  traits  of  character,  create  and 
retain  warm  personal  friends." 

Upon  his  return  home  in  February,  Mr.  Vallandigham  resumed  the 
practice  of  the  law  diligently,  declining  to  be  a  candidate  for  re-elec- 
tion; but  during  the  summer,  determined  to  remove  to  Dayton,  Ohio, 
where  he  arrived  on  the  28th  of  August,  and  immediately  assumed  the 
editorial  charge  of  the  "  Western  Empire,"  a  weekly  Democratic  news- 
paper. In  a  carefully  prepared  "Salutatory,"  he  defined  his  principles, 
and  the  manner  in  which  he  proposed  to  conduct  it ;  accurately  dis- 
tinguishing between  true  constitutional  Democracy  and  mere  popular 


IS  BIOGR-VrHICAL    MEMOIR. 

licentiousness ;  declaring  his  fixed  purpose  to  stand  fast  to  the  Consti- 
tution strictly  construed;  to  maintain  the  doctrine  of  State  Uiglits  as 
taught  in  the  Resolutions  of '98  ;  and  to  defend  the  Union;  and  further 
declaring  that  he  would  "  pander  to  the  sectional  prejudices,  or  the 
fanaticisu),  or  wounded  pride,  or  disappointed  ambition,  of  no  man  or 
set  of  men,  whereby  that  Union  should  be  put  in  jeopardy."  "In 
our  editorial  intercourse  \vith  the  public,"  he  added,  "  we  shall  seek  no 
personal  conti'ovcrsy,  nor  shall  any  one  draw  us  into  any  controversy 
unbecoming  a  gentleman.  Towards  all  adversaries  between  whom  and 
us  there  shall  arise  any  matter  of  difference,  wc  will  exhibit  proper 
respect — sometimes  for  tlieir  sakes,  always  for  our  own."  And  speak- 
ing of  despotism,  he  said:  "We  will  war  against  it  in  all  its  forms, 
and  to  us  the  despotism  of  the  many  is  no  more  tolerable  than  the 
despotism  of  the  few."  * 

Among  his  leading  articles  \yhilc  eilitor  of  the  Empire,  was  one 
denouncing  political  preaching  and  partisan  clergymen  ;  another  affirm- 
ing the  right  of  revolution,  but  opposing  what  was  then  called  "  Dorr- 
ism,"  or  the  asserted  right  of  a  mere  numerical  majority,  at  any  time,  to 
set  aside  existing  rules  and  forms  as  prescribed  by  constitutions,  and  by 
spont;meous  movement,  Avithout  form  or  color  of  law,  to  set  up  a  new 
constitution  and  government;  and  another  against  the  repeal,  then 
agitated  bv  the  Abolitionists,  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1793. 

In  June,  1849,  Mr.  Vallanuigham  sold  out  his  interest  in  the 
"Empire;"  and  after  spending  the  summer  and  autumn  in  travel  and 
the  winter  in  general  reading  and  study,  resumed  the  regular  and  dili- 
gent pi'actice  of  the  law,  in  April,  1850,  with  reputation  ajid  success. 
During  the  winter  preceding,  he  had  been  proposed  and  voted  for,  by 
his  party  in  the  Legislature,  for  Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas  Court  of 
tlie  jMontgomery  circuit ;  but  defeated  by  "  the  balance  of  power  party," 
because  of  his  views  upon  the  question  of  Slav^ery. 

In  the  fall  of  1850,  he  defended  the  Compromise  or  Adjustment 
measures  of  that  year,  at  a  very  excited  public  meeting,  called  to 
denounce  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  then  recently  passed  ;  and  a  week 
later,  at  another  most  important  and  respectable  meeting,  offered  a 
series  of  resolutions  in  support  of  the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the 
Laws,  which  were  unanimously  adopted.  His  speech  at  the  first  meet- 
ing called  forth  tlie  highest  commendation  from  both  parties. 

In  the  summer  of  1851,  after  the  adoption  of  the  new  Constitution, 
he  was  a  candidate  before  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  for  the 

*  The  newspaper  organ  of  the  Whig  party  of  Dayton,  thus  noticed  Mr.  V.'s  con- 
nection with  the  "Empire:"  "  Mr.  Vallandigiiam  presents  himself  to  our  people 
as  a  political  editor,  in  the  temperate  and  gentlemanly  manner,  which  from  pre- 
vious representations  of  his  character,  we  had  been  led  to  expect." 


BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIE.  19 

office  of  Lieutenant-Governor,  but  after  an  animated  contest  and  a  most 
flattering  vote,  was  defeated.  In  August,  1852,  notwithstanding  a  very 
bitter  opposition,  he  was  nominated  by  a  large  majority,  as  the  Demo- 
cratic candidate  for  Representative  in  Congress,  from  the  third  or 
Dayton  district ;  but  after  a  most  exciting  canvass,  was  beaten  by  a 
majority  of  one  hundred  and  forty-seven,  in  a  poll  of  some  twenty 
thousand.  His  competitor  secured  the  "  third  party"  or  Abolition  vote, 
and  also  the  aid  of  several  treacherous  Democrats  who  "  bolted"  the 
nomination.  Two  weeks  after  the  election,  the  Central  Committee  of 
the  third  or  "  Liberty  party"  issued  a  circular  referring  to  Mr.  V.  in  these 
terms  :  "  In  opposition  to  Mr.  Campbell,  the  Democratic  party  had  noToi- 
nated  C.  L.  Vallandigham,  a  lawyer  of  high  standing,  an  eloquent  and 
ready  debater,  of  gentlemanly  deportment  and  unblemished  private 
character,  and  untiring  industry  and  energy.  But  he  was  known,  to  all, 
to  be  an  ultra  pro-slavery  man  (an ti- Abolitionist) ;  he  undertook,  with 
a  relish,  to  carry  the  load  of  the  Compromise  measures,  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  included,  and  he  broke  down  under  the  burden." 

Two  years  afterwards  he  was  unanimously  renominated  by  his  party 
for  the  same  post ;  but  it  was  the  well-remembered  Kansas-Nebraska 
and  "Know-Nothing"  campaign,  and  he  was  beaten  by  nearly  twenty- 
six  hundred  votes.  Incapable  of  discouragement,  he  again  accepted  a 
unanimous  nomination  by  the  Democratic  party  of  the  district,  in  185G. 
It  was  the  year  of  the  first  struggle  for  the  Presidency,  by  the  Republi- 
can or  Abolition  party,  now  consolidated  by  the  total  dissolution  of  the 
Whig  party.  The  Presidential  canvass  was  extremely  violent ;  but  in 
the  third  district,  it  was  wholly  forgotten  in  the  terrible  bitterness  of 
the  Congressional  cont-est.  Nothing  equal  to  it  had  ever  occurred  in 
the  United  States.  The  Abolition  party  had  renominated  Mr.  Camp- 
bell, who  had  twice  before  been  Mr.  Yallandigham's  successful  com- 
petitor. For  three  months,  day  and  night,  every  energy  of  the  candi- 
dates and  their  respective  parties,  was  exhausted  ;  and  at  the  end  of  the 
canvass,  Mr.  Campbell  appeared  by  the  official  count  to  be  elected  by 
nineteen  majority.  Gross  and  palpable  frauds  had  been  committed  by 
the  successful  party;  and  upon  this  ground,  and  because  a  number  of 
negro  votes  had  been  cast  for  his  competitor,  the  friends  of  Mr.  V. 
demanded  that  he  should  contest  the  election.  He  consented,  and  on 
the  first  of  December,  1857,  giving  up  his  law-practice  which  had  every 
year,  notwithstanding  his  devotion  to  politics,  become  larger  and  more 
lucrative,  he  appeared  in  Washington  to  prosecute  the  contest.  But 
the  "  Lecompton  Question"  was  absorbing  all  attention,  and  had  divided 
the  Democratic  party.  He  was  in  great  danger  of  having  the  justice  of 
his  case  sacrificed  to  the  interests  of  faction ;  but  after  a  tedious  and 


20  BIOGRAPHICAL   3IEM0IR. 

most  harassing  contest  of  six  months,  tr}'ing  both  patience  and  temper, 
and  requiring  the  utmost  tact  and  ability,  he  was  declared  entitled  to 
the  seat,  by  a  majority  of  seven  votes  ;  and  accordingly,  on  the  25th  of 
May,  1858,  was  sworn  in  as  a  member.     But  the  session  Avas  nearly  at 
an  end,  and  he  soon  after  returned  home ;  and  being  accepted  by  his 
party   as  a  candiilate   witliout  the  formality  of  a  convention,  was,  in 
October  following,  re-elected  over  Mr,  Campbell,  by  a  majority  of  one 
hundred   and  eighty-eight  votes.     This  was  his  tirst  political  success 
since  the  renewal  of  the  Anti-slavery  agitation  in  1846.     Because  of  his 
determined  hostility  to  abolition  fanaticism,  and  his  unbending  purpose 
never  to  yield  principle  to  mere  policy  or  expediency,  he  had  failed 
repeatedly  in  every  political  aspiration.     He  himself  in  his  speech  of 
January  14,  1863,  thns  records  his  position  and  his  experience:    "Sir, 
T  am  one  of  that  number  who  have  opposed  abolitionism,  or  tlic  politi- 
cal development  of  the  Anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  North  and  West, 
from  the  beginning.     In  school,  at  college,  at  the  bar,  in  public  assem- 
blies, in  the  Legislature,  in  Congress,  boy  and  man,  as  a  private  citizen 
and  in  public  life,  in  time  of  peace  and  in  time  of  war,  at  all  times  and 
at  every  sacrifice,  I  have  fought  against  it.     It  cost  me  ten  years'  exclu 
sion  from  office  and  honor,  at  that  period  of  life  when  honors  are  sweet-  ■ 
est.     No  matter;  I  learned  early  to  do  right  and  to  wait."     He  did 
wait,  and  was  finally  successful,  and  so  continued,  till  the  whirlwind  of 
civil  war  changed  every  thing,  and  again  compelled  him  to  appeal  to 
truth,  justice,  and  time.     But  this  long  interval  was  not  unprofitably 
spent.     These  repeated  contests  and  defeats  disciplined  and  strengthened 
and  hardened  him  for  the  yet  severer  struggle  to  come ;  and  meantime, 
besides  the  assiduous  and  successful  practice  of  his  profession,  he  devoted 
himself  to  political  science  and  philosophy,  and  especially  to  the  read- 
ing of  history,  always  his  favorite  study.     Dui'ing  this  period  he  com- 
pleted a  full  course  of  history  from  the  earliest  records  in  the  Bible, 
down  to  the  present  time.     A  part  also  of  his  leisure  was  occupied  in 
modern  literature  and  the  ancient  classics.     And  he  alwavs  found  time 
for  all ;  yet  spent  the  hot  months  of  each  summer  in  travel  and  recrea- 
tion. 

Subsequent  to  the  October  election  in  1855,  Mr.  Vallandigham 
delivered,  before  a  Democratic  meeting  in  Dayton,  one  of  the  ablest 
speeches  of  his  life.  It  is  a  searching  and  exhaustive  review  and  ex- 
position of  the  rise,  progress,  and  full  development  of  the  Abolition 
movement  in  the  United  States.  After  several  years  of  halting  and 
trimming  before  that  party,  then  holding  the  balance  of  power,  during 
which  the  Democracy  of  Ohio  had  obtained  a  precarious  control  of  the 
State  government,  they  were,  at  last,  badly  beaten  at  two  elections; 
and  the  purpose  of  the  speech  was  to  bring  the  party  up  to  meet  the 


BIOaRAPHICAL    MEMOIR.  21 

Slavery  issue  fairly  and  boldly,  and  thus  to  restore  it  to  sound  doctrine 
and  discipline,  and  therefore  to  power  and  usefulness.  He  concluded 
with  these  warning  words:  "If  thus,  sir,  we  are  true  to  the  country-, 
true  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  true  to  our  principles,  true  to 
our  cause  and  to  the  grand  mission  which  lies  before  us,  we  shall  turn 
back  yet  the  fiery  torrent  which  is  beai'ing  us  headlong  down  to  the 
abyss  of  disunion  and  infamy,  deeper  than  plummet  ever  sounded ;  but 
if  in  this,  the  day  of  our  trial,  we  are  found  false  to  all  these,  false  to 
our  ancestors,  false  to  ourselves,  false  to  those  who  shall  come  after  us, 
traitors  to  our  country  and  to  the  hopes  of  free  government  through- 
out the  globe,  Bancroft  will  yet  write  the  last  sad  chapter  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  American  Republic." 

At  the  following  State  Convention,  the  halting  policy  on  that  ques- 
tion was  abandoned.  Mr.  V.  was  chosen  a  delegate  from  the  State  at 
large  to  the  Cincinnati  Convention,  and  took  an  active  part  in  its  pro- 
ceedings, especially  as  a  member  of  the  committee  on  the  "  Platform." 

In  June,  1857,  occurred  the  "Ohio  Rebellion"  of  that  year.  The 
deputies  of  the  United  States  Marshal  for  the  southern  district  of  that  State, 
were  resisted  in  the  execution  of  regular  judicial  writs  issued  under  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Act.  They  were  pursued  by  a  body  of  armed  men, 
more  than  fifty  in  number,  from  Champaign  County,  through  Clark 
into  Green,  and  there  overpowered,  and  the  prisoners  rescued.  They 
were  also  themselves  arrested  on  State  process.  To  discharge  them 
from  imprisonment,  a  habeas  corpus  was  issued  from  the  United  States 
District  Court  at  Cincinnati.  The  Attorney-General  of  Ohio  was  sent 
down  by  Mr.  Chase  (then  the  Governor),  to  argue  the  case  for  the 
State.  Mr.  Pugh,  Mr.  Vallandigham,  and  another,  appeared  for  the 
United  States.  Mr.  V.'s  arofument  called  forth  the  hio^hest  commenda- 
tion.  Maintaining  the  vital  doctrine  of  State  Rights  to  the  fullest  ex- 
tent, he  yet  asserted  and  upheld  the  absolute  supremacy  of  the  Federal 
Government  within  its  constitutional  limits. 

During  the  wearisome  contest  at  the  first  session  of  the  Thirty-Fifth 
CoHgress,  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  been  assiduous  in  attendance  upon 
the  sittings  of  the  House,  diligently  observing  and  studying  the  usages 
and  rules  of  parliamentary  bodies,  as  he  had  also  done  while  a  repre- 
sentative in  the  State  Legislature.  At  the  second  session,  1858-'9,  he 
took  little  part  in  the  current  debates,  but  continued  the  study  of  par- 
liamentary law;  addressing  the  House,  however,  upon  the  subjects  of 
Impeachments  and  the  Tariff,  and  successfully  defending  himself  against 
a  charge  made  at  the  preceding  session,  in  regard  to  his  vote  upon  the 
repeal  of  the  "  Black  Laws,"  while  a  member  of  the  Ohio  House  of 
Representatives. 

In  October,  1859,  returning  from  a  visit  to  Washington  and  Balti- 


22  BIOGEAPHICAL    MEMOIE. 

more,  it  was  his  ill  fortune  to  hear  the  first  gun  and  witness  the  first 
conflict  of  the  great  Civil  War  which  soon  after  convulsed  the  whole 
CDUiitry  in  revolution.  lie  arrived  at  Harper's  Ferry  upon  the  train 
w  hich  passed  just  after  the  capture  of  "  John  Brown,"  by  Colonel 
Robert  E.  Lee.  Delaying  a  few  hours,  lie,  by  accident,  saw  this  first 
martyr  of  Abolitionism,  and  held  some  conversation  with  him,  which 
being  made  public  by  the  reporters,  he  was  bitterly  assailed  by  the 
abolitit)n  press,  as  though  guilt}-  of  some  great  sacrilege.  To  these 
assaults  he  replied  in  a  letter,  stating  the  occasion  and  nature  of  his 
interview,  and  giving  a  brief  description  of  Brown,  and  a  narrative  of  his 
raid.     It  is  a  valuable  part  of  the  history  of  that  memorable  aftair. 

The  Thirtv-Sixth  Congrress  met  in  its  first  session,  amid  cfreat  excite- 
ment,  on  the  5th  of  December.  In  the  House,  neither  the  Democratic 
nor  "  Republican"  or  Abolition  party,  had  a  majority,  the  balance  of 
power  being  held  by  the  so-called  "American"  or  "Know-Xothing" 
party.  By  the  Abolitionists,  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  a  man  of  much 
pretension  and  small  abiltty,  was  put  in  nomination  for  Speaker.  He 
was  an  indorser  of  "  Helper's  Impending  Crisis,"  that  manual  of  assassi- 
nation and  robbery,  which  aided  much  to  foment  the  "  John  Brown 
Raid,"  and,  along  with  other  causes,  to  kindle  the  flames  of  civil  war 
between  the  North  and  South.  A  violent,  and,  at  times,  almost  bloody 
struggle  for  two  months,  ensued  over  the  speakership.  The  debates, 
after  the  first  two  weeks,  became  most  turbulent  in  their  character.  The 
hostile  parties  glowered  upon  each  other.  More  than  half  the  mem- 
bers came  to  the  House  heavily  armed.  Knives  projected  from  men's 
bosoms;  pistols  were  dropped  upon  the  floor,  and  personal  collision 
several  times  was  most  imminent.  Mr.  Vallandigham  rose  to  ad- 
dress the  House  late  on  the  evening  of  December  14.  He  asked  the 
usual  courtesy  of  an  adjournment.  But  because  of  the  extreme  bitter- 
ness towards  him  on  part  of  the  Abolition  members,  in  consequence 
of  his  interrogation  of  "  old  John  Brown,"  it  was  refused.  He  began 
his  speech  amid  great  confusion  upon  their  side  of  the  Chamber,  but 
soon  yielded  to  a  motion  to  adjourn.  It  was  again  refused  ;  whereuppn 
he  declined  to  continue  the  speech  which  he  had  intended  to  make, 
and,  there  being  no  "hour  rule,"  contented  himself  with  speaking 
against  time  upon  the  "  Helper  Book,"  yielding  every  little  while  to 
motions  to  adjourn.  Ami- 1  the  utmost  confusion,  but  with  arms  calmly 
folded,  standing  at  the  head  of  the  middle  aisle,  he  continued  this  line 
of  remark  until  the  opposition  were  glad  to  yield  to  an  adjournment. 

The  .next  morning  he  resumed  and  finished  his  speecTi  without  inter- 
ruption, and  amid  the  most  respectful  silence.  Referring  to  the  scenes 
of  the  night  previous,  he  said  : 

"Though  a  young  man  still,  I  have  seen  some  legislative  service. 


BIOGEAPHICAL    ilEMOIE.  23 

• 

One  of  the  earliest  lessons  which  I  taught  myself  as  a  legislator,  and 
which  I  have  sought  to  exemplify  in  every  department  of  life,  was  so  to 
be  a  politician  as  not  to  forget  tliat  I  was  a  gentleman.  There  is  a 
member  of  this  House,  now  present,  with  whom,  some  years  ago,  I 
served  in  the  Legislature  of  my  State,  and  to  him  I  might  with  perfect 
confidence  appeal  to  verify  the  assertion  that  no  man  ever  was  more  ex- 
act in  the  observance  of  every  rule  of  courtesy  and  decorum,  not  only 
in  debate,  but  in  private  intercourse  with  his  fellows.  I  might  appeal, 
also,  to  the  members  herfe  present  of  the  last  Congress,  and  to  every 
member  of  this  House  of  Representatives,  and  demand  of  them  whether 
I  have  offended  in  any  thing,  in  public  or  private,  in  word  or  by  deed. 
That  courtesy  which  I  thus  readily  extend  to  others,  I  am  resolved  to 
exact  for  myself,  at  all  times  and  at  every  hazard." 

The  gi'eat  struggle  terminated  finally  in  the  compulsory  withdrawal 
of  Sherman,  and  the  election  of  a  Republican  not  an  indorser  of  Help- 
er's Crisis. 

In  the  midst  of  this  contest,  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  occasion  to 
defend  successfully,  in  a  letter  to  the  Post-office  Department,  the  freedom 
of  the  mails,  in  favor  of  a  constituent,  the  publisher  of  a  political-reli- 
gious newspaper  hostile  to  him  in  sentiment  and  party.  In  February 
he  delivei'ed  a  brief  eulogy  upon  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  Mr. 
GooDE,  of  Virginia,  and,  in  March,  spoke  at  length  against  the  "hour 
rule,"  denouncing  it  as  a  chief  source  of  evil  in  legislation  and  parliamen- 
tary proceeding.  The  speech  was  listened  to  with  great  attention  from 
all  parties.  About  the  same  time  he  spoke  in  support  of  his  bill  to 
provide  for  the  better  arming  of  the  militia  of  the  States.  It  was  a 
subject  to  which  he  had  always  devoted  much  attention — having,  while 
a  student  of  law,  held  the  position  of  division-inspector  in  his  native 
county,  with  the  rank  of  lieutenant-colonel.  In  1857,  upon  the  re- 
organization of  the  volunteer  militia  of  Ohio,  he  had  been  chosen  a 
brigadier-general,  and  had  spent  no  small  amount  of  money  and  time 
to  bring  his  command  into  good  condition  and  discipline.  He  now 
labored  earnestly,  at  this  and  the  succeeding  session,  to  procure  arms 
from  the  Federal  Government,  though  without  success.  An  appropri- 
ation of  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  more  difficult  to  be 
obtained  then  than  three  hundred  millions  now. 

In  April,  1860,  as  Secretary  of  the  National  Democratic  Committee, 
he  attended  the  Presidential  Convention  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina. 
Though  never  an  indorser  of  Mr.  Douglas's  peculiar  views  in  reference 
to  "  Squatter  Sovereignty,"  or  the  power  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  Territory 
over  the  institution  of  Slavery,  yet  for  personal  reasons  and  because  he 
believed  him  to  be  the  fittest  man  to  meet  the  impending  crisis,  he  sin- 
cerely supported  that  gentleman  for  the  nomination.     At  the  same  time 


24  BIOGRArniCAL    MEMOIR. 

he  saw,  with  anxiety  and  alarm,  that  the  unwise  counsels  and  ill-advised 
measures  of  some  of  Mr.  D.'s  friends,  were  about  to  be  used  by  his  ex- 
treme  Southern  opponents  to  break  up  the  Convention,  and  did  not 
hesitate  to  speak  his  mind   freely.     Foreseeing  in  this,  as  in  so  much 
else,  the  approaching  storm  of  civil  war,  he  earnestly  labored  to  avert 
the  mischief.     Men  over-zealous  in  support  of  their  favorite,  took  occa- 
sion to  question  his  sincerity.     This  coming  to  the  notice  of  Mr.  Doug- 
las, he  replied  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  declaring  that  he  never  had  a  mo- 
ment's doubt  of  Mr.  V.'s  honor  and  fidelity;  adding,    "  Whenever  I 
know  a  man  to  be  a  gentleman,  I  always  regard  his  word  as  conclusive." 
Mr.  Douglas  having  been  nominated  by  the  main   body  of  the   ad- 
journed Convention  at  Baltimore,  Mr.  Yallaxdigham  supported  him 
earnestly  throughout  the  canvass.     He  was  himself,  for  the  fifth   time, 
the  Democratic  candidate  in  his  district  for  Representative  in  Congress, 
and  again  without  the  formality  of  a  convention.     Though  not  quite  the 
most  bitter,  it  was  the  most  difficult  and  delicate  of  all  his  canvasses  ;  in- 
asmuch as  the  opponents  of  the  Republican  party  were  divided  into  three 
sections,  supporting  respectively  Bell,  Breckinridge  and  Douglas.     Yet 
he  was  returned  by  a  majority  nearly  the  same  as  in   1858.     Shortly 
afterwards  he  went  to  New  York  and  New  Jersey  to  speak  in  behalf  of 
the  "  Union  Ticket"  in  those  States.     And  it  was  at  the  great  meeting 
of  November  2d,  at  the  "  Cooper  Institute,"  that  he  made  the  declara- 
tion that  "he  never  would,  as  a  Representative  in  the  Congress  of  the* 
United  States,  vote  one  dollar  of  money  whereby  one  drop  of  American 
blood  should  be  shed  in  a  civil  war  ;"  which  declaration  he  says,  in  a 
card  publisheil  soon  after,  "  was  received  with  vehement  and  long-con- 
tinued   applause,  the  entire  vast    assemblage  rising   as  one  man,  and 
cheering  for  some  minutes."     Six  months  later,  when  he  had  made  the 
declaration  good,  that  same  "  vast  assemblage"  would  have  torn  him  in 
pieces    had    he  ventured  to   set  foot  in  the  city  of  New  York.     Yet 
"  after  some  time  be  past,"  sobered  by  the  chastening  ordeal  of  blood 
and  of  financial  and  commercial  ruin,  they  will  again  rise  up  to  do  him 
honor,  because  he  kept  his  faith  and   word.     Late  in  the  afternoon  of 
the  dav  of  election,  he  reached  home  and  ijave  his  vote,  remarkinof  to  a 
friend  that  "  he  feared  it  was  the  last  which  any  one  would  give  for  a 
President  of  the   United  States." 

In  a  speech  at  Dayton,  on  the  19th  of  May  (while  at  home  on  a  brief 
visit),  he  had  denounced  Lincoln's  doctrine  of  "  the  irrepressible  con- 
flict" in  a  vehement  and  impassioned  manner,  as  "revolutionary,  disor- 
ganizing, subversive  of  the  Government,  and  ending  necessarihj  in  dis- 
union.^^  "  Our  fathers,"  he  said,  "  had  founded  a  government  expressly 
upon  the  compatibility  and  harmony  of  a  union  of  States  '  part  slave 
and  part  free ;'  and  whoever  affirmed  th«  contrary,  laid  the  axe  at  the 


BIOGKAPHICAL   MEMOIR.  25 

very  root  of  the  Union."  And  in  a  later  speech  at  the  same  place,  he 
said :  "  Kill  the  Northern  and  Western  anti-slavery  organization  (the 
Republican  party),  and  the  extreme  Southern  pro-sla\ery,  'fire-eating' 
organization  of  the  Cotton  States  (its  offspring),  will  expire  in  three 
months.  Continue  the  Republican  party — above  all,  put  it  in  jiower, 
and  the  antagonism  will  grow  till  the  whole  South  will  become  a  unit.^^ 

On  the  first  of  August,  he  had  addressed  a  very  large  Democratic 
meeting  at  Detroit,  in  Michigan.  In  the  course  of  the  speech,  he  said : 
"  Northern  sectionalism  and  fanaticism  has  been  approaching  nearer  and 
nearer  to  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  while  Southern  fanaticism,  starting  in 
the  Cotton  States,  has  been  creeping  northwardly,  until  tlie  two  factions 
have  nearly  met.  What  will  be  the  inevitable  result  of  the  conflict 
which  must  ensue  ?  They  must  meet,  if  the  floods  of  fanaticism  be  not 
checked.  When  they  meet  on  the  southern  borders  of  Illinois,  Indiana, 
and  Ohio,  how  long  can  the  country  endure  ?  Human  nature  has  been 
misread  from  the  time  of  Cain  to  this  day,  if  blood,  blood,  human  blood, 
be  not  the  result  But,  thank  God,  between  the  two  sections  there  is  a 
band  of  national  men,  patriots,  who  love  their  country  more  th;m  sec- 
tionalism, ready  to  stay  this  conflict.  Our  mission  is  to  drive  this  sec- 
tionalism of  the  North  back  towards  the  Lakes  ;  and  that  of  the  South 
back  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,"  It  was  upon  this  occasion  that  he  first 
crossed  the  river  to  Windsor,  little  imagining  that  in  three  years  it  was 
to  be  his  place  of  sojourn  while  in  exile  for  the  exercise  of  his  constitu- 
tional rights  as  a  citizen.  He  foresaw  the  Civil  War,  but  no^  the  im- 
mediate overthrow  of  personal  and  political  liberty. 

Soon  after  the  Presidential  election,  referring,  in  a  card,  to  his  decla- 
ration in  the  speech  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  he  said :  "  I  now  deliber- 
ately repeat  and  reaffirm  it,  resolved,  though  I  stand  alone,  though  all 
others  yield  and  fall  away,  to  make  it  good  to  the  last  moment  of  my 
public  life.  No  menace,  no  public  clamor,  no  taunts,  nor  sneers,  nor 
foul  detraction,  from  any  quarter,  shall  drive  me  from  my  firm  purpose. 
Ours  is  a  government  of  opinion,  not  of  force — a  Union  of  free  will,  not 
of  arms ;  and  coercion  :s  civil  w^ar — a  war  of  sections,  a  war  of  States, 
waged  by  a  race  compounded  and  made  up  of  all  other  races,  full  of 
intellect,  of  courage,  of  will  unconquerable,  and,  when  set  on  fire  by 
passion,  the  most  belligerent  and  most  ferocious  on  the  globe — a  civil 
war,  full  of  horrors,  which  no  imagination  can  conceive  and  no  pen 
portray.  If  Abraham  Lincoln  is  wise,  looking  truth  and  danger  full  in 
the  face,  he  will  take  counsel  of  the  '  old  men,'  the  moderates  of  his 
party,  and  advise  peace,  negotiation,  concession ;  but  if,  like  the  foolish 
son  of  the  wise  king,  he  reject  these  wholesome  counsels,  and  hearken 
only  to  the  madmen  who  threaten  chastisement  with  scorpions,  let  him 
see  to  it,  lest  it  be  recorded  at  last  that  none  remained  to  serve  him 


26  BIOGEAPHICAL   MEMOIR. 

'  save  the  house  of  Judah  only.'  At  least,  if  he  will  forget  the  seces- 
sion of  the  Ten  Tribes,  will  he  not  remember  and  learn  a  lesson  of  wis- 
dom fivm  the  secession  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies  ?" 

Concrress  met,  in  second  session,  on  the  3d  of  December.  The  next 
day  a  member  from  Virginia  nioved  that  a  committee  of  thirty-three, 
one  from  each  State,  be  appointed  to  consider  and  report  upon  the 
"  perilous  condition  of  the  country."  Mr.  Vallandigiiam  voted  for  the 
motion  ;  because,  as  he  remarked,  it  was  an  expedient ;  and  though 
totally  inadequate,  he  was  willing  to  support  any  and  every  expedient, 
trusting  that  something  might  be  yet  done  to  avert  the  impending  dan- 
gers. Mr.  Hawkins,  of  Florida,  being  named  one  of  the  committee, 
moved  to  be  excused.  A  debate  followed,  and  Mr.  V.  spoke  briefly 
but  earnestly  in  protest  against  the  composition  of  the  committee; 
criticising  it  also  as  too  numerous,  and  therefore  discordant  and  slow ; 
and  asking  what  kind  of  conciliation  and  compromise  that  was,  which 
began  by  forcing  a  member  to  serve  upon  a  committee  raised  for  the 
very  purpose  of  peace?  He  spoke  also  earnestly  in  defence  of  the 
Northwest,  declaring  that  the  people  of  that  section,  to  secure  a  mari- 
time boundary,  would,  if  necessary,  "  cleave  their  way  to  the  sea-coast 
with  the  sword."  They  might  be  a  nation  of  warriors,  but  a  tribe  of 
shepherds  never.  He  closed  with  a  solemn  warning  that  the  time  was 
short  and  the  danger  imminent,  and  that  standing  in  the  forum  of  his- 
tory, acting  in  the  eye  of  posterity,  all  duties  should  be  discharged  in- 
stantly and  aright,  if  we  would  be 

"  Medicined  to  that  sweet  sleep 
"Wliich  yesterday  we  owed." 

The  House  refused  to  excuse  Mr.  Hawkins ;  but  he  did  not  serve.  It 
was  in  this  debate  that  Mr.  Sickles  repeated,  substantially,  Mr.  V.'s 
declaration  against  supporting  a  civil  war,  pledging  that  no  man  should 
ever  pass  through  the  city  of  New  York  to  coerce  a  seceded  State,  and 
threatening  that  that  city  would  assert  her  own  independence.  He  re- 
canted, and  is  a  major-general :  Mr.  Yallandigham  made  his  declara- 
tion good,  and  is  now  an  exile.  But  in  proud  conscientiousness  he 
could  exclaim  in  Congress,  after  two  years  of  desolating  and  disastrous 
war,  "  To-day  I  bless  God  that  not  the  smell  of  so  much  as  one  drop 
of  its  blood  is  upon  my  garments." 

A  stormy  session  ensued.  All  compromise  was  first  delayed  and 
then  finally  rejected  by  the  Abolition  party,  and  the  secession  of  seven 
States  and  the  establishment  of  the  Confederate  Government  followed. 
Mr.  P ugh  spoke  against  coercion  in  a  powerful  and  most  eloquent  speech 
on  the  20th  of  December ;  and  at  a  serenade  given  in  his  honor  a  few 
days  later,  Mr.  Y.  earnestly  advocated  conciliation,  not  force  ;  peace,  not 


BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIK.  27 

civil  war;  saying  that  althougli  they  who  so  counselled  "might  be 
prostrated  for  a  time  by  the  heavy  tide  of  public  opinion  which  would 
run  against  them,  yet  upon  the  gravestone  of  every  such  patriot  would 
be  written  'Resurgam  ;'  and  it  would  be  a  glorious  resurrection." 

On  the  20th  of  February,  18G1,  he  spoke  at  length  in  a  very  elabo- 
rate speech,  in  behalf  of  compromise  and  especially  in  support  of  his 
own  proposed  amendments  to  the  Constitution.  No  propositions  were 
ever  so  grossly  misrepresented.  Mr.  Vallandigham  had  prepared,  in 
advance,  an  abstract  of  them  for  the  telegraphic  agent  of  the  "Asso- 
ciated Press"  at  the  capital,  who  transmitted  it  correctly  to  the  Eastern 
papers  ;  but  at  Philadelphia  the  knavish  agent  of  the  Association  tele- 
graphed it  to  the  Western  press  as  a  proposition  to  divide  the  United 
States  into  four  separate  republics.  Mr.  Y.  demanded  a  correction ; 
but  the  perversion  was  only  repeated  in  a  form  still  more-false.  This 
was  but  the  beginning  of  that  persistent  and  aggravated  misrepresen- 
tation in  every  form,  by  telegraph  as  well  as  otherwise,  to  which,  for 
more  than  three  years  now,  he  has  been  subjected.  The  propositions 
are  published  in  full  in  this  volume  along  with  the  speech.  They  were 
amendments  only  to  the  existing  Constitution.  They  proposed  "  sections" 
within  the  Union  ;  not  distinct  nationalities  or' republics  outside  of  it. 
The  preamble  itself  recites,  as  the  purpose  of  the  propositions,  that  "  it 
concerned  the  peace  and  stability  of  the  Federal  Union  and  Govern- 
ment, that  a  division  of  the  States  into  mere  slaveholding  and  non- 
slaveholding  sections,  causing  hitherto — and  from  the  nature  and  neces- 
sity of  the  case — inflammatory  and  disastrous  controversies  upon  the 
subject  of  Slavery,  ending  already  in  present  disruption  of  the  Union 
— should  be  forever  hereafter  ignored."  And  he  himself,  in  a  card 
published  a  few  days  after  their  introduction,  declared  :  "  My  propo- 
sitions look  solely  to  the  restoration  and  maintenance  of  the  Union 
forever  bv  suggesting  a  mode  of  voting  in  the  United  States  Senate  and 
the  electoral  colleges,  by  which  the  causes  which  have  led  to  our  present 
troubles  may,  in  the  future,  be  guarded  against,  without  secession  and 
disunion;  and,  also,  the  agitation  of  the  Slavery  question,  as  an  element 
in  our  national  politics,  be  forever  hereafter  arrested.  My  object — the 
sole  motive  by  which  I  have  been  guided  from  the  beginning  of  this 
most  fatal  revolution — is  to  maintain  the  Union,  and  not  to  destroy  it." 
So  far  as  any  suggestion  has  ever  been  made  respecting  a  possible 
fiiture  division  of  the  American  Republic  "  into  four  distinct  nation- 
alities," it  came  fi'om  the  pen  of  Lieutenant-General  Scott,  who  even 
went  so  far  as  to  name  the  probable  capitals  of  three  of  the  "  nation- 
alities." 

At  the  time  this  speech  was  delivered,  the  voice  of  nearly  the  whole 
country  was  decidedly  for  peace.     At  the  opening  of  the  session,  Mr. 


28  BIOGKAPIIICAL    MEMOIR.  • 

V.  had  found  himself  almost  alone  against  "coercion  ;"  but  in  February, 
the  sentiment  liad  greatly  changed  both  in  Congress  and  out  of  it 
Immciliatc  danger  of  civil  war  seemed  to  have  passed  by.  Yet  satis- 
fied that  all  hope  of  present  adjustment  was  at  an  end,  and  separation 
or  disunion  an  existing,  though,  as  he  hoped,  a  temporary  fact,  he 
spoke  chiefly  in  review  of  the  more  remote  and  hidden  but  real  cause 
whioh  hail  led  to  the  crisis;  and  from  these  sought  to  deduce  the  true 
nature  of  the  searchinrr  and  decisive  remedies  which  he  believed 
essential.  But  in  the  whirlwind  of  the  hour,  neither  the  House  nor 
the  country  was  in  a  temper  to  hear  philosophy,  and  the  speech 
attracted  then  no  part  of  the  attention  which  it  has  since  received.  It 
was  appropriately  entitled,  in  the  pamphlet  edition  published  at  the  time, 
"The  Great  American  Revolution  of  1861" — a  revolution  which  he  pro- 
nounced "  the  grandest  and  the  saddest  of  modern  times."  It  is  almost 
useless  to  add  that  he  voted  for  the  Crittenden  Compromise  proposi- 
tions, and  for  all  others  which,  in  his  own  language,  "  so  much  as  prom- 
ised even  to  heal  our  troubles  and  to  restore  the  Union  of  the  States." 
But  he  voted  also  steadily,  in  common  with  nearly  the  whole  body  of 
the  Democratic  and  Conservative  members,  against  the  Force  Bill  and 
all  other  measures  of  coercion ;  believing  that  threats  would  hvail 
nothing  to  intimidate  the  seceded  States  ;  while  justice  and  fair  com- 
promise would  satisfy  the  vast  majority  of  tlieir  people.  During  the 
course  of  the  session,  Mr.  Corwin  having  without  provocation,  attempted 
to  raise  a  laugh  at  the  expense  of  his  "  unhappy  colleague,"  Mr.  V. 
retorted  sharply  :  "  Sir,  this  is  the  niost  important  question  ever  de- 
bated in  the  American  Congress,  and  too  serious  eveiy  way  for  jest.  It 
ought  to  make  every  man  '  unhappy  ;'  and  I  am  very  sorry  that  my 
facetious  colleague  is  not  unhappy  over  it,  too.  It  is  a  pity,  sir,  that  he 
cannot  lay  aside  his  levity  long  enough  to  consider  it  witli^  a  little  of 
the  seriousness  which  it  demands.  This  is  no  time  for  smartness,  but 
for  sadness  and  solemnity  rather." 

Mr.  Vallandigiiam  returned  home  in  March,  trusting  that  peace  at 
least  might  be,  for  the  present,  maintained.  On  the  loth  of  that 
month,  Mr.  Douglas,  who  during  the  early  part  of  the  second  session 
had  inclined  strongly  towards  coercion,  made  his  memorable  speech,  the 
most  statesmanlike  of  his  life,  declaring,  "  War  is  disunion  ;  war  is  final, 
eternal  separation."  But  the  necessities,  if  not  tlie  purposes,  of  the  Ad- 
ministration and  of  the  Republican  party,  required  civil  war,  and  they 
found  means  to  precipitate  it.  A  fleet  threatened  Charleston  ;  Sumter 
fell,  and  the  proclamation  of  the  15th  of  April  followed.  Mr.  V.  did 
not  hesitate  for  one  moment  to  maintain  his  position.  It  is  scarcely 
possible  to  realize  the  howl  of  denunciation  which  forthwith  was  raised 
against  him,  or  the  ridiculous  and  preposterous  reports — among  others 


BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIE.  29 

that  his  house  had  been  destroyed  and  that  he  hiinself  had  fled — which 
were  circulated.  He  noticed  them  in  a  card  on  the  17th  of  April,  de- 
claring that  his  position  had  long  since  been  taken,  was  well  known,  and 
Avould  be  maintained  to  the  end.  Some  daj's  later  he  wrote  two  strictly 
private  letters  to  a  gentleman  in  Cincinnati,  who,  having  been  arrested 
for  "  treason"  upon  a  judicial  warrant  a  few  months  afterwards,  was 
tried  before  a  United  States  Commissioner;  the  sole  proof  against 
him  being  the  production  of  these  letters.  Yet  the  Federal  District- 
Attorne}',  Flamen  Ball  by  name,  Avas  not  ashamed  to  urge  on  the  case 
upon  this  evidence.  His  argument  was  after  this  fashion,  doubtless  : 
Mr.  Vallandigham  is,  of  course,  a  "  traitor :"  the  accused  corresponds 
with  him ; "  argal"  the  accused  is  a  traitor.  The  letters  themselves, 
very  brief,  contain  not  any  thing  of  note  except  that  they  suggest  a /ear 
or  ai^prehenaion  (common  to  almost  all  men  before  that  time)  that  war 
being  disunion,  nothing  remained  but  separation.  But  they  do  not 
express  desire  or  ivish,  or  any  thing  similar,  for  disunion. '  On  the  con- 
trary, ,Mr.  V.  distinctly  says  that  "  he  would  watch  the  first  favorable 
chance  to  move  publicly  for  peace  and  restoration." 

During  the  latter  part  of  April  and  the  months  of  May  and  June,  as 
also  for  many  months  afterwards  at  Washington,  in  his  journeyings  and 
at  home,  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  exposed  day  and  night  to  imminent 
danger  of  personal  harm  or  death.  Even  his  assassination  was  publicly 
invited  by  men  holding  responsible  official  positions  under  the  Admin- 
istration. In  his  own  language,  "  he  carried  his  life  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand."     But  no  evil  befell  him  or  came  nio;h  his  dwellinjr. 

On  the  3d  of  May,  the  proclamation  of  the  President,  calling  out 
volunteers  and  increasing  the  regular  army  and  the  navy,  without  act 
of  Congress,  was  issued.  It  was  a  bold  and  most  dangerous  usurpation, 
which,  if  submitted  to  without  remonstrance,  could  end  only  in  the 
final  subversion  of  the  Constitution  in  every  part.  Mr.  V.  immediately 
issued  a  private  circular,  addressed  to  some  twenty  or  more  of  the  most 
prominent  Democratic  politicians  of  the  State,  proposing  a  conference 
at  Chillicothe  on  the  15th  of  the  month,  to  concert  measures  to  arouse 
the  people  to  a  sense  of  the  danger  which  was  so  imminent  from 
the  bold  conspiracy  to  usurp  all  power  into  the  hands  of  the  Executive, 
and  thus  to  "  rescue  the  Republic  from  an  impending  military  despot- 
ism." But  four  answers  were  received — three  favorable,  and  one  ad- 
verse to  the  conference.     It  was  not  held. 

Certain  of  his  constituents  having  addressed  him  a  letter,  requesting 
his  views  more  at  length,  he  replied  on  the  13th  of  May,  quoting  from 
and  adopting  Mr.  Douglas's  speech  before  referred  to,  and  declaring : 
"  As  for  the  conquest  and  subjugation  of  the  South,  I  will  not  impeach 
the  intelligence  of  any  man  among  you,  by  assuming  that  you  dream 


30  BIOGUAPniCAL   MEMOIR. 

of  it  as  at  any  time  or  in  any  way  possible.  Remember  the  warning  of 
Lord  Chatham  to  tlie  British  Parliament :  '  My  Lords,  you  cannot  con- 
quer America.'  A  public  debt  of  hundreds  of  millions,  weighing  us 
and  our  post^rit}'  down  for  generations,  we  cannot  escape.  Fortunate 
shall  we  be  if  we  escape  with  our  liberties.  Indeed,  it  is  no  longer  so 
much  a  question  of  war  with  the  South,  as  whether  we  ourselves  are  to 
have  constitutions  and  a  republican  form  of  government  hereafter  in  the 
North  and  .West.  In  brief:  I  am  for  the  Constitution  first,  and  at  all 
hazards ;  for  whatever  can  now  be  saved  of  the  Union  next ;  and  for 
PEACE  always  as  essential  to  the  preservation  of  either." 

Such  were  his  sentiments,  his  conception  of  the  impending  dangers, 
and  his  convictions  as  to  the  final  issue  of  the  war  during  the  first 
month  after  the  proclamation,  and  when,  amid  the  storm  which  swept 
over  the  whole  land,  scarcely  ten  men  in  the  country  dared  confess  that 
they  were  of  the  same  opinion. 

On  the  4th  of  July,  the  Thirty-Seventh  Congress  met  in  first  or  extraor- 
dinary session.  The  Speaker  elect  delivered  a  ferocious  and  bloodthirsty 
address,  declaring  that  territorial  unity  must  be  maintained  though  the 
"  waters  of  the  iMississippi  should  be  crimsoned  ^vith  liuman  gore,  and 
ever}^  foot  of  American  soil  baptized  in  fire  and  bloody  This  atrocious 
sentiment  was  received,  according  to  the  official  report,  ■\%ith  "  vociferous 
applause  upon  the  floor  and  in  the  galleries,  which  lasted  for  many 
minutes."  Indeed,  the  entire  scene  reminded  one  of  some  of  the  mad- 
dened spectacles  exhibited  by  the  French  National  and  Constituent  As- 
semblies, rather  than  the  sitting  of  a  Congress  of  sober  and  rational 
statesmen.  It  was  the  purpose  of  the  Administration  leaders  to  prevent 
all  debate,  and  there  seemed  to  be  a  general  disposition  among  the  mem- 
bers on  both  sides  to  acquiesce.  But  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  resolved 
to  be  heard,  and  he  obtained  the  floor  on  the  10th  of  July.  No  speech 
was  ever  delivered  in  the  midst  of  greater  personal  dangei' — not  even 
Cicero's  oration  for  Milo,  or  Curran's  defence  of  Bond.  The  galleries 
and  lobbies  were  filled  with  an  excited  soldiery  and  infuriated  partisans, 
threatening  assassination.  A  leading  Administration  paper  in  New 
York  had,  two  days  before,  declared,  that  if  an  attempt  was  made  to 
speak  for  peace,  the  "  aisles  of  the  hall  would  run  with  blood."  Arbi- 
trary arrests  for  opinion  and  speech  had  already  been  commenced.  Al- 
most without  sympathy  upon  his  own  side  of  the  House,  and  with  a 
fierce,  insolent,  and  overwhelming  majority  upon  the  other,  Mr.  Val- 
landigham, calm  and  unawed,  met  every  peril,  and  spoke  as  firmly, 
solemnly,  and  earnestly,  as  under  ordinary  circumstances.  "  My  duty," 
said  he,  "  shall  be  discharged — calmly,  firmly,  quietly,  and  regardless 
of  consequences.  The  approving  voice  of  a  conscience  void  of  offence, 
and  the  approving  judgment  which  shall  follow,  '  after  some  time  be 


BIOGEAPHICAL   MEMOIR.  31 

past,'  these,  God  help  me,  are  my  trust  and  my  support."  The 
"motto"  from  Lord  Bacon's  will,  prefixed  to  the  pamphlet  edition 
of  the  speech,  is  significant;  interpreted,  as  it  has  now  been,  by 
the  light  of  three  years'  experience.  A  very  large  number  of  copies 
was  circulated  in  various  forms.  North  and  South,  and  it  was  published 
also  in  England  and  on  the  continent.  The  peroration  has  been  espe- 
cially admjred ;  but  it  fell  upon  hostile  or  unwilling  ears.  His  fit  audi- 
ence was  to  be  gathered  in  the  presence-chamber  of  Time.  But  com- 
parative freedom  of  speech,  which  otherwise  might  have  perished, 
was  made  secure,  at  least  within  the  halls  of  Conoress. 

On  the  12th,  in  debate  on  the  Volunteer  Army  Bill,  he  moved  for  the 
appointment  of  seven  commissioners  to  accompany  the  army,  to  receive 
and  consider  propositions  from  the  Confederate  States  or  any  one  of 
them,  looking  to  a  suspension  of  hostilities,  and  the  return  of  those 
States  or  any  of  them  to  the  Union,  He  supported  the  motion  in  a 
few  remarks,  saying,  that  while  he  would  not  in  the  beginning  have 
given  a  dollar  or  a  man  to  commence  the  war,  he  would  now  vote  as 
many  men  and  as  much  money  as  might  be  necessary  to  defend  and  to 
protect  the  Federal  Government ;  but  he  would  not  support  a  war  of 
aggression  or  invasion.  His  proviso  received  but  twenty-one  votes  upon 
a  count.  The  only  terms  of  peace  then,  as  proclaimed  on  the  floor 
by  a  '■  war  Democrat,"  amid  frantic  applause  in  the  galleries,  were  that 
the  people  of  the  South  should  lay  down  their  arms,  sue  for  peace,  and 
surrender  their  leaders  for  execution.  Similar  terms  had  once  before 
been  demanded  by  George  the  Third  and  Lord  North.  Mr.  Yallan- 
DiGHAM  voted  for  the  second  part  of  the  celebrated  '*  Crittenden  Reso- 
lution" of  July  22d,  the  day  after  the  rout  at  Bull  Run ;  but  for 
reasons  which  he  assigned  in  his  speech  at  Dayton,  of  August  2,  1862, 
refused  to  support  the  first.  It  was  a  solemn  day ;  the  Gascon  inso- 
lence, and  vociferous  levity  of  July  4th,  had  been  succeeded  by  craven 
fear.  Every  moment  members  sat  in  anxious  suspense,  lest  the  sound 
of  Beauregard's  cannon  should  awaken  the  echoes  of  the  Capitol.  Mr. 
Crittenden's  resolution  had  been  scouted  out  of  the  House  three  days 
previously  ;  it  passed  now  with  but  two  dissenting  voices. 

Upon  a  question  relating  to  army  chaplains,  Mr.  V.  testified  his  de- 
votion to  religious  toleration,  by  moving  to  strike  out  the  clause  which 
required  them  to  belong  to  some  "  Christian  denomination,"  and  insert 
"  religious  society,"  so  as  to  include  men  of  the  Hebrew  faith ;  remark- 
ing that  "  while  we  were  in  one  sense  a  Christian  people — and  yet  in 
another  not  the  most  Christian  people  in  the  world — ours  was  still  not 
a  Christian  Government,  nor  a  Government  which  has  any  connection 
with  any  one  form  of  religion  in  preference  to  any  other  form."  The 
amendment  was  rejected. 


32  BIOGKAPIIICAL    MEMOIR. 

The  Military  Academy  bill  being  under  consideration,  Mr.  Vallan- 
DiGHAM  denounced  the  new-fangled  oath  of  allegiance  wliich  it  pro- 
posed, to  require  of  the  cadets.  "  I  am  especially  opposed,"  he  said, 
"to  the  unheard-of  and  execrable  oath  required  by  one  of  its  sections. 
There  is  no  inconsistency,  not  the  slightest,  between  the  allegiance 
which  every  man  owes  to  the  State  in  which  he  lives,  and  that  which 
he  bears  to  the  United  States.  They  are  perfectly  reconcilable.  Yet 
it  requires  the  renunciation  of  the  allegiance  which  every  cadet  owes, 
by  birth  or  adoption,  to  his  State.  It  is  an  oath  which  ought  not  to 
be  required  of  any  young  man  of  honor,  or  of  any  citizen  of  a  free 
country.  I  denounce  it,  too,  as  unconstitutional.  All  that  that  instru- 
ment provides  for,  is  an  oath  to  support  it."  Here  his  remarks  were 
arrested  and  declared  out  of  order,  whereupon  he  resumed  his  seat,  say- 
ing, "  Then,  sir,  I  propose  to  discuss  it  in  that  Great  Hereafter  to 
which  I  have  so  often  had  occasion  of  late  to  appeal."  Before  the  ad- 
journment he  introduced  a  joint  resolution  pronding  for  the  calling  of 
a  Convention  of  the  States,  to  adjust  all  controversies  in  the  mode 
prescribed  by  the  Constitution ;  but  never,  during  the  entire  Congress, 
was  able  to  secure  any  action  upon  it.  He  had  taken  a  most  active 
and  vigilant  part  in  the  proceedings  throughout  the  session,  and  al- 
though with  the  sympathy  and  support  of  but  some  eight  or  ten  mem- 
bers, Avas  always  upon  the  alert,  and  on  the  day  of  the  adjournment,  was 
aptly  described  by  a  Republican  member,  as  "  the  young  man  standing 
in  the  aisle,  where  he  has  stood  nearly  all  the  session — on  the  frontier." 
The  House  adjourned  on  the  6th  of  August,  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
fatuous  and  childish  levity. 

On  the  7th  of  July,  Mr.  Vallandigham's  courage  and  presence  of 
mind  had  been  severely  tested.  He  had  that  day  visited  the  Ohio 
camps  on  the  west  side  of  the  Potomac,  where  several  hundred  of  bis 
constituents  were  stationed.  Soon  after  arriving  upon  the  ground, 
some  members  of  a  Cleveland  company  approached  and  notified  him 
to  leave.  He  refused  indignantly :  a  tumult  ensued.  Several  of  the 
officers  and  a  large  majority  of  the  men  soon  rallied  to  his  support,  and 
the  rioters  retired  to  their  own  limits.  He  remained  an  hour  or  two, 
and  then  returned  to  Washington.  A  substantially  con-ect  statement 
of  the  affair,  referring  to  "  the  nerve  and  courage"  shown  by  him,  was 
telegraphed  from  Alexandria  to  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia;  but  at 
the  latter  place  suppressed,  and  a  false  and  distorted  version  substituted 
by  the  agent  of  the  "Associated  Press,"  and  thence  duly  transferred  to 
that  shameless  compilation  of  falsehood  and  trash,  Putnam  and  Moore's 
"  Rebellion  Record." 

The  adjournment  was  followed  by  one  of  those  periodic  and  spas- 
modic reigns  of  terror,  with  which  the  Administration  has   so  often 


BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIR.  33 

afflicted  the  country  during  the  war.  But  Mr.  Y.  was  not  molested. 
In  contempt  of  all  threats  of  violence,  he  addressed  several  public 
meetings  iu  his  own  district,  during  and  after  the  canvass,  which  re- 
sulted in  overwhelming  defeat  to  the  Democratic  party  in  every  State. 

Upon  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  second  session,  in  December,  the 
House,  in  hot  haste,  indorsed  the  act  of  Captain  Wilkes  in  seizing- 
Mason  and  Slidell  on  board  the  British  mail-steamer  Trent.  Two 
weeks  later,  news  arrived  of  the  prepai-ation  of  England  for  war,  and 
Mr.  y.  for  the  purpose  of  exposing  tlie  shallow  but  blustering  and 
cowardly  statesmanship  of  the  Abolition  party  in  the  House,  offered  a 
preamble  reciting  the  action  of  the  Navy  Department  and  the  resolu- 
tions of  the  House,  and  proposed  to  pledge  Congress  to  support  the 
Executive  in  maintaining  the  position  thus  assumed;  but  his  resolution 
was  summarily  referred  to  a  committee,  and  thus  suppressed.*  "Be- 
fore three  months,"  said  he,  "  these  men  will  be  surrendered  in  face  of 
a  threat."  It  was  done  in  ten  days.  In  a  subsequent  debate,  he 
deprecated  the  surrender  thus  made,  but  in  strong  language  con- 
demned the  original  seizure  as  against  international  law,  maintaining 
that  they  should  have  been  given  up  at  first.  Daring  this  debate, 
January  7,  1862,  his  "loyalty,"  as  usual,  was  called  in  question,  and  he 
replied :  "  Consistency,  firmness,  and  sanity  in  the  midst  of  general 
madness — these  make  up  my  offence.     But  '  Time,  the  Avenger,'  sets 

all  things  even ;  and  I  abide  his  leisure I  appealed  then, 

as  I  appeal  noAv,  alike  to  the  near  and  to  the  distant  future ;  and  by 
the  judgment  of  that  impartial  tribunal,  even  in  the  present  generation, 
I  will  abide ;  or  if  my  name  and  memory  shall  fade  away  out  of  the 
record  of  these  times,  then  will  these  calumnies  perish  with  them." 

On  the  3d  of  February,  he  addressed  the  House  on  the  subject  of 
finances  and  the  United  States  Note  or  "Legal  Tender"  bill,  in  a 
searching  and  exliaustive  argument  against  a  forced  Government  paper 
currency ;  predicting  the  inevitable  result — depreciation  and  final  ex- 
plosion. Just  at  this  time,  such  and  so  great  had  been  the  flood  of  de- 
nunciation and  falsehood  poured  out  upon  him,  that  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  in  Congress  and  out  of  it,  he  was  the  most  unpopular,  best  abused, 
most  execrated  man  in  America.  He  was  himself  fully  conscious  of  the 
fact;  and  one  of  the  opening  paragraphs  of  the  speech  freely  confesses 
it.  "  Nor  am  I  to  be  deterred,"  he  said,  "  from  a  faithful  discharge  of 
my  duty,  by  the  consciousness  that  my  voice  may  not  be  hearkened  to 
here,  or  in  the  country,  because  of  the  continued,  persistent,  but  most 
causeless  and  malignant  assaults  and  misrepresentations  to  which,  for 
months  past,  I  have  been  subjected.    Sir,  I  am  not  here  to  reply  to  them 

*  A  false  and  corrupted  copy  will  be  found  in  the  "  Rebellion  Record." 
3 


34  BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIR. 

to-day.  Xoither  am  I  to  be  driven  from  the  line  of  duty  by  them. 
'  Strike,  but  hear.'  "  lie  was  barely  listened  to  in  the  Ilouse  ;  yet  the 
speech  was  received  very  favorably  among  the  better  class  of  bankers 
and  tiiianciers  in  New  York  and  Boston. 

On  the  19th  of  the  same  month,  John  Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania, 
moved  a  resolution  of  inquiry  into  Mr.  Vallandioiiam's  "loyalty," 
founded  upon  a  local  item  in  a  Baltimore  newspaper  of  the  lowest  class. 
An  intensely  interesting  and  exciting  scene  followed.  The  resolution, 
although  wholly  without  notice,  gave  him  the  fit  occasion,  long  waited 
for,  to  defend  himself  from  the  suspicions  and  calumnies  to  which  he 
had  so  long  been  exposed,  and  he  instantly  improved  it  to  the  utmost ; 
and  with  undisturbed  self-possession  and  dignity,  but  in  tones  the  most 
earnest  and  indignant,  ret(n-tcd  with  so  much  vigor  and  spirit  ilpon  his 
accuser,  that  he  was  glad  to  escape  by  withdrawing  the  resolution. 
The  rencontre  was  of  very  great  advantage  to  Mr.  V.,  and  was  the  first 
break  in  the  cloud  which  hitherto  had  rested  over  him.  His  allusion 
to  the  flag  which  hung  above  the  Speaker's  scat,  forced  admiration  from 
even  a  hostile  House  and  galleries.  As  he  sat  down  he  overheard  a 
friend  say,  "  He  has  not  made  a  mistake  nor  spoken  an  ill-advised  word 
from  the  beginning." 

In  April,  Mr.  Wade,  of  Ohio,  in  a  speech  in  the  Senate,  assailed  Mr. 
A^ALLANDiGiiAM  as  "a  man  who  never  had  any  sympathy  with  the 
Republic,  but  whose  every  breath  was  devoted  to  its  destruction,  just  as 
far  as  his  heart  dare  permit  him  to  go."  Patiently  waiting  a  few  days 
for  a  fitting  opportunity,  Mr.  V.  read  the  sentence  and  said :  "  Now, 
sir,  here  in  my  place  in  the  House,  and  as  a  representative,  I  denounce — 
and  I  speak  advisedly — the  author  of  that  speech  as  a  liai^  a  scoundrel, 
and  a  coward.  His  name  is  Benjamin  F.  Wade."  An  eftbrt  was  made 
to  censure  him,  but  he  had  the  resolution  ruled  out  upon  a  point  of 
order.  This  was  the  only  occasion  upon  which  he  ever  departed  from 
the  strictest  decorum  and  propriety  of  language  in  the  House ;  but  the 
provocation  was  extreme,  and  Wade  was  the  first  responsible  indorser 
whom  he  had  found,  of  the  accumulated  falsehoods  and  detraction  of  a 
whole  year.  Petitions,  finally,  for  his  expulsion  as  "  a  traitor  and  a 
disgrace  to  the  State  of  Ohio,"  were  presented  from  Cincinnati  and 
Springfield,  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  but  re- 
ported back  and  laid  upon  the  table,  as  unfounded.  Seven  times,  during 
the  session,  these  attacks  were  renewed,  and  as  often  failed.  Indeed, 
he  has  himself  said  that  for  months  he  never  heard  an  Administration 
member  address  the  Chair,  without  looking  up  to  see  if  a  resolution  for 
his  censure  or  expulsion  was  about  to  be  offered.  But  he  escaped  the 
trying  ordeal  unscathed.  It  was  said  afterwards  that  "  he  could  not  be 
detected   because  he  was  too   sharp  to  leave  his   tracks  uncovered." 


BIOGEAPHICAL    MEMOIR.  35 

"  Never  make  any  tracks,"  said  be,  in  reply,  "  and  none  will  ever  be 
found  out."  During  this  session  also,  bis  vigilance  was  never  for  a 
moment  relaxed.  Powerless  in  numbers  and  influence,  be  bad  but  one 
weapon — knowledge  of  the  rules  of  the  House,  and  skill  in  parliament- 
ary law ;  and  he  used  it  with  the  utmost  efficiency.  "  I  am  always 
uneasy,"  said  a  member,  not  originally  friendly  to  him,  "  when  Vallan- 
digbam  is  out  of  his  seat,  lest  some  mischief  should  be  slipped  in 
contrary  to  rule." 

A  concerted  eflfort,  for  election  purposes,  having  been  made  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  (Mr.  Chase),  and  several  Administration 
members  of  the  House,  to  underestimate  the  public  debt  and  expendi- 
tures, Mr.  v.,  on  the  30th  of  June,  in  a  statistical  and  carefully  pre- 
meditated speech,  exposed  the  cheat,  and  exhibited  the  real  extent  of 
the  liabilities  incurred  up  to  that  date. 

The  violent  public  commotion  w-hicli  followed  the  proclamation  of 
the  15th  of  April,  1861,  the  apparent  unanimity  in  support  of  the  war, 
the  desertion  of  many  of  the  old  Democratic  leaders  and  the  fatal 
timidity  of  others,  together  with  the  specious  cry  of  "  No  party,"  had 
greatly  paralyzed  the  Democratic  organization.  Its  disastrous  defeat 
that  year  in  every  State  where  the  elections  were  contested,  almost  dis- 
solved it.  Repeated  efforts  had  been  made  by  Mr.  Vallandigham 
and  the  little  band  with  wdiich  he  acted,  to  restore  the  party ;  but  all 
had  failed,  and  two  several  "  caucuses"  of  the  Democratic  members  of 
Congress  had  broken  up  in  disorder.  The  case  was  still  more  hopeless 
iu  December.  But  he  closely  watched  and  calmly  waited  for  the  oppor- 
tune moment;  and  in  March,  1862,  taking  advantage  of  the  rapid  and 
bold  development  of  the  real  purposes  of  the  party  in  power  in  their 
various  schemes  for  Confiscation  and  Emancipation,  he  drew  up  a  call  for 
a  conference  of  the  Democratic  Senators  and  Representatives,  and  ob- 
tained signatures  to  the  number  of  thirtv-five.  The  meetin<r  was  held 
on  the  25th  of  March,  and  after  a  full  discussion  and  some  altercation,  it 
was  resolved  that  the  organization  of  the  party  should  be  perfected,  and 
on  motion  of  Mr.  V.  ordered  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  prepare 
an  Address  to  the  People  of  the  United  States.  But  previous  to  this, 
a  secret  and  concerted  effort  was  being  made  by  certain  Eastern  politi- 
cians of  the  Democratic  party,  in  combination  with  others  of  the  old 
Whig  and  "  American"  parties,  to  disband  the  former,  and  to  consoli- 
date a  new  "  conservative"  organization  with  a  new  name.  They  who  . 
were  in  this  movement  managed,  upon  the  pretext  that  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham was  too  unpopular  to  be  on  the  committee,  or,  indeed,  to  be 
recognized  as  a  member  of  the  party,  to  postpone,  and  finally  to  de- 
feat the  appointment  of  the  committee  ordered  by  the  conference.  But 
he,  and  those  who  acted  with  him,  were  not  to  be  thus  beaten.     He 


86  BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIE. 

prepared  an  Address,  which,  after  much  delay  and  difficulty,  was  signed 
by  twelve  Democratic  Representatives  from  the  West  (six  of  them  from 
Ohio),  and  by  two  from  Pennsylvania,  and  one  from  New  Jersey :  all 
the  other  E.istern  members  except  one,  and  four  of  the  Western,  refusing 
peremptorily  to  sign  it.  It  was  issued  on  the  8th  of  May  ;  and  three 
days  later,  the  new  "  Conscnative"  movement  culminated  in  a  caucus  in 
the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  John  J.  Crittenden  presiding. 
But  the  "Address"  was  already  before  the  public,  and  to  the  Demo- 
cratic masses  it  was  as  the  call  of  the  trumpet  to  buttle.  Few  political 
documents  have  ever  produced  a  greater  effect.  The  effort  to  super- 
sede the  Democratic  organization  utterly  failed.  In  every  State  Demo- 
cratic tickets  were  put  in  nomination,  and  the  extraordinary  and  almost 
universal  successes  of  the  year  followed.  About  the  time  of  the  publi- 
cation of  the  "  Address,"  Mr.  V.  visited  Philadelphia  and  New  York  for 
the  first  time  since  the  commencement  of  the  war,  and  was  in^  both 
cities  and  along:  the  route,  received  with  honor  bv  his  friends.  In  the 
latter,  he  was  tendered  a  serenade  at  the  Metropolitan  Hotel ;  but 
apprehending  that  the  war-fury  had  not  yet  sufficiently  subsided,  he 
declined  it. 

On  the  2d  of  July  he  left  Washington  for  Columbus,  Ohio,  to  attend 
the  Democratic  State  Convention  on  the  Fourth.  It  was  one  of  the 
largest,  most  enthusiastic,  and  harmonious,  ever  convened  in  the  State. 
From  the  east  side  of  the  State  House,  at  the  close  of  the  business  pro- 
ceedings, he  addressed  it  in  a  speech  wholly  extemporaneous,  but  most 
impassioned,  and  delivered  with  voice  and  gesture  terribly  in  earaest. 
Its  effect  upon  the  audience  was  very  great.  One  delegate  described 
his  shoulders  as  bruised  and  blue  for  several  davs,  from  the  spasmodic 
workino;  of  the  finfjers  of  a  stalwart  countryman  behind  him  durinor  the 
delivery.  At  the  beginning,  throughout,  and  at  the  close,  the  applause 
was  unbounded.  In  fact,  his  entire  reception  at  Columbus  was  one  of 
the  proudest  and  most  gratifying.  He  arrived  in  that  city  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  3d,  and  after  midnight  responded  to  a  serenade ;  the  next 
day  addressed  the  convention,  and  again  at  night  spoke  from  the  hotel 
to  an  immense  assemblage — three  speeches  Avithin  twenty  hours. 

McClellan  had  just  been  defeated  and  hurled  back  upon  the  James 
river,  though  after  a  gallant  and  stubborn  resistance,  and  a  most  mas- 
terly retreat.  Pope's  short  but  disastrous  and  disgraceful  campaign 
began.  More  troops  were  demanded,  and  the  reign  of  terror  was  re- 
newed with  greater  violence  than  ever  before.  Two  clergymen  from  the 
*'  Union"  Slave  States,  who  had  been  upon  a  visit  to  Mr.  Yallandi- 
OHAM,  were  arrested  on  their  way  home.  It  had  been  the  intention  to 
arrest  them  at  his  house,  and  to  seize  him  with  them.  Arrangements 
were  made  subsequently  to  effect  his  arrest  separately,  and  officers  camo 


BIOGRAPHICAL    JIEMOIR.  37 

up  for  that  purpose  from  Cincinnati.  Mr.  V.'s  friends  rallied  to  Ms 
support,  and  his  house,  and  all  approaches  to  it,  were  securely  guarded. 
For  several  weeks  he  sat  up  or  lay  whole  nights  in  his  day-clothes. 
Regular  reports  of  the  arrival  of  all  trains  were  brought  to  him,  and 
ward  and  watch  kept  continually  till  break  of  day.  Not  a  footfall 
upon  the  pavement  escaped  his  ear.  He  himself,  in  his  speech  at  New- 
ark, New  Jersey,  in  February,  1863,  has  described  "that  most  terrible 
of  all  apprehensions,  haunting  you,  walking  with  you,  abiding  with 
vou — the  fear  of  arrest."  "  I  felt  it,"  he  adds,  "  when  niofht  after  nio-ht, 
in  my  own  house — which  one  of  the  noblest  of  Eaglishnien  told  me, 
which  my  father  told  me,  which  the  Constitution  of  my  country  told 
me,  was  my  castle — when  night  after  night  from  the  setting  of  the  sun, 
from  the  hour  when  the  gray  starlight  had  gathered  around  that  which 
should  have  been  a  peaceful  and  undisturbed  home,  until  day  dawned, 
I  watched  in  suspense  for  every  footfall  upon  the  pavement,  and  the 
sound  of  eveiy  carriage  which  rumbled  along  the  street,  lest  some  ex- 
ecrable minion  should  dare  attempt  to  cross  the  threshold  of  that  castle. 
'Not  while  memory  holds  a  seat  in  this  distracted  globe,'  shall  the  vigils 
of  those  terrible  nights  be  forgotten." 

The  intention  to  arrest  him  was  abandoned.  Meantime,  however,  he 
resolved  to  address  the  people  of  Dayton,  to  whom  he  had  not  spoken 
since  the  war  bewan.  It  was  a  bold  movement,  exhibitinof  the  highest 
moral  as  well  as  physical  courage ;  since  repeated  threats  had  been 
made,  during  the  preceding  eighteen  months,  that  he  would  not  be 
allowed  to  speak ;  and,  independent  of  this,  the  deed  of  assassination 
might  easily  be  done  under  cover  of  darkness.  Uncertain  as  to  the 
number  who  would  attend,  the  meeting  was  announced  for  a  public  hall 
in  the  city  ;  but  as  evening  approached,  an  immense  concourse  of  people, 
numbering  some  eight  thousand,  assembled.  The  hall  was  speedily 
filled  to  overflowing,  but  not  an  eighth  part  of  the  audience  could  gain 
entrance.  The  meeting  was  adjourned  to  the  south  side  of  the  beauti- 
ful stone  court-house  of  the  city ;  and  thence  Mr.  Vallandigham  ad- 
dressed the  vast  and  excited  multitude  for  nearly  three  hours,  in  a 
speech  which  was  received  with  exalted  enthusiasm,  and  which,  when 
published,  called  forth  the  highest  encomiums.  "  Elevated  in  tone,  states- 
manlike in  conception,  full  of  pathos,  and  pure  in  diction,"  said  the 
editor  of  the  Crisis,  "  it  thrills  the  reader  as  though  fresh  from  a 
Roman  Senate  in  the  hour  of  Rome's  most  terrible  trials  for  freedom 
and  existence."  At  the  close,  the  people  accompanied  him  in  triumph 
to  his  home.  The  victory  was  won,  and  he  was  secure.  One  passage 
only  need  be  quoted  here  : 

"  I,  too,  have  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution ;  and  more  than 
that,  /  have  done  it.     I  demand  that  all  men,  from  the  humblest  citizen 


38  BIOGRAPHICAL    ME3I0IE. 

up  to  the  President,  shall  be  made  to  obey  it  likewise.  In  no  other 
■way  can  we  have  liberty,  order,  security.  I  was  born  a  freeman.  I 
shall  die  a  freeman.  It  it  appointed  to  all  men  once  to  die ;  and  death 
never  comes  too  soon  to  one  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty.  I  have 
chosen  my  course — have  pursued  it — have  adhered  to  it  to  this  hour, 
aud  will  to  the  end,  regardless  of  consequences.  My  opinions  are  im- 
movable ;  fire  cannot  melt  them  out  of  me.  I  scorn  the  mob.  I  defy 
arbitrary  power.  I  may  be  imprisoned  for  opinion's  sake — never  for 
crime,  never  because  fiilse  to  the  country  of  my  birth,  or  disloyal  to  the 
Constitution  which  I  worship.  Other  patriots,  in  other  ages,  have  suf- 
fered before  me.  I  may  die  for  the  cause  :  be  it  so  ;  but  "  the  immortal 
fire  shall  outlast  the  humble  organ  which  conveys  it,  and  the  breath  of 
liberty,  like  the  word  of  the  holy  man,  will  not  die  with  the  prophet, 
but  survive  him."  And,  meantime,  men  of  Dayton,  the  opinions  which 
I  entertain,  the  deep  convictions  that  control  me  in  that  course  which, 
before  Almighty  God,  I  believe  can  alone  maintain  the  Constitution  and 
restore  the  Union  as  our  fathers  made  it,  I  never,  never  will  yield  up. 
Neither  height  nor  depth,  neither  death  nor  life,  nor  principalities,  nor 
powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come — no,  nor  the  knife  of 
the  assassin,  shall  move  me  from  my  firm  purpose." 

In  September  he  was  nominated  the  sixth  time,  and  by  acclamation, 
as  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Congress.  He  accepted  iii  a  brief  ad- 
dress, and  referrinor  to  the  dangers  of  the  canvass  and  the  threats  that 
he  would  not  be  permitted  to  speak  in  certain  localities,  said  :  "  Let  it 
be  understood,  once  for  all,  that  wherever  in  any  part  of  any  county  in 
the  district,  it  is  deemed  convenient  and  proper  to  announce  a  Demo- 
cratic meeting,  it  will  be  held ;  and,  God  willing,  I  will  address  it." 
He  made  his  declaration  good,  canvassing  every  county,  and  addressing 
large  and  enthusiastic  meetings  of  the  people.  But  since  the  election 
in  1860,  a  hostile  Lesrislature  had  changed  the  district,  addinor  thereto  a 
county  giving  always  an  overwhelming  Abolition  majority.  The  sole 
struggle,  therefore,  was  to  carry  his  original  district,  and  in  this  he 
succeeded  by  a  largely  increased  majority. 

The  fall  elections  in  all  the  States  resulted  in  Democratic  triumphs. 
The  reign  of  terror  was  broken  down  and  free  speech  once  more  se- 
cured. Mr.  Vallandigham  addressed  many  immense  meetings  in  Ohio 
and  Indiana,  continuing  his  labors  up  to  the  day  of  his  departure  for 
Washington.  He  was  everywhere  received  with  extraordinary  honors 
and  enthusiasm.  But  at  one  of  those  meetings  in  Indiana,  arrange- 
ments were  made  by  the  Governor  and  United  States  Marshal  to  arrest 
him  on  his  way  home  at  night.  His  friends  urged  that  under  cover  of 
darkness,  he  should  be  taken  in  a  carriage  past  the  point  where  the  ar- 
rest was  to  be  made  ;  but  he  answered,  "  I  came  by  the  cars,  and  in 


BIOGEAPIIICAL    MEMOIE.  39 

that  way  I  mean  to  rpturn,  arrested  or  not — so  help  me  God."  He  took 
the  train,  and  although  the  marshal  and  a  company  of  soldiers  were  at 
the  depot,  no  arrest  was  attempted.  He  subsequently  addressed  a 
meeting  near  the  same  place  and  upon  the  same  road,  but  was  not  even 
threatened.  Soon  after  this  an  elegant  gold-headed  cane  was  presented 
to  him,  with  appropriate  ceremonies,  bj'  the  ladies  of  Dayton.  Reply- 
inof  to  the  address,  he  referred  in  fittino;  but  delicate  terms  to  his 
mother,  saying :  ''  If,  indeed,  sir,  I  have  exhibited  any  of  the  hio-h  qual- 
ities of  courage,  fortitude,  and  immovable  devotion  to  the  good  axd 
THE  RIGHT,  which,  On  behalf  of  these  ladies,  you  have  so  kindly  attrib- 
uted to  me,  it  is  to  one  of  their  own  sex,  more  than  to  any  other 
human  agency,  that  I  am  indebted  for  them — my  mother.  In  child- 
hood, in  boyhood,  and  in  youth,  in  the  midst  of  many  trials,  from  her 
teachings,  and  by  her  example,  I  have  learned  those  lessons  and  formed 
the  character  and  habits — if  it  be  so — which  fitted  me,  with  courage 
and  endurance,  and  unfaltering  faith,  to  struggle  with  the  terrible  times 
in  the  midst  of  which  we  live." 

The  Thirty-Seventh  Congress  met  in  third  session,  in  December. 
From  May  down  to  that  period,  scarcely  any  thing  but  disaster  had 
befallen  the  Federal  arms.  The  elections  had  nearly  all  terminated 
adversely  to  the  Administration.  All  was  alarm,  almost  terror.  Arbi- 
trary arrests  were  suspended ;  Forts  Warren  and  Lafayette  and  other 
Bastiles  gave  up  their  prisoners ;  and  Mr.  Seward  graciously  announced 
in  an  official  dispatch,  the  return  of  the  country  to  its  "  normal  condi- 
tion," when  all  citizens  might  freely  oppose  and  criticise  the  measures 
and  conduct  of  the  men  in  power.  But  one  more  effort  was  yet  to  be 
essayed  against  Richmond.  The  fortunes  of  battle  were  committed  to 
the  "weak  but  presumptuous  Burnside,"  who,  on  the  13th  of  Decem- 
ber, for  five  hours,  with  frantic  recklessness,  drove  on  his  columns 
against  the  Confederate  intrenchment*,  and  at  nightfall,  after  the  loss 
of  fourteen  thousand  of  his  best  troops,  had  earned  the  well-deserved 
cognomen  of  "  The  Butcher  of  Fredericksburor."  The  dav  before  the 
battle,  Mr.  Vallaxdigham  had  arrived  in  New  York.  Affairs  were 
now  changed;  and  accepting  a  proffered  serenade  at  the  Xew  York 
Hotel,  he  addressed  a  very  large  assembly,  and  there,  amid  great  ap- 
plause, first  uttered  the  word  "  Peace"  in  public  meeting  in  that  city. 

Returning  to  Washington,  be  found  the  Administration  and  their 
friends  in  Congress  casting  about  for  some  mode  of  escape  from  the 
struggle,  with  safety  to  themselves.  Negotiation,  armistice,  mediation, 
peace,  were  no  longer  treasonable  words.  At  this  time  he  introduced  a 
series  of  resolutions  in  favor  of  peace  and  reconstruction,  and  in  con- 
demnation of  the  doctrine  of  "  State  suicide  or  extinguishment,"  and 
also  of  all  attempts,  direct  or  indirect,  to  supersede  the  existing  consti- 


40  BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIII. 

tutional  i^ovcriiinent,  by  a  dictatorship.  One  of  these  resohitions  was 
an  ahnost  literal  transcript  of  a  motion  eonceniiiig  the  American  war, 
made  in  the  r>ritish  House  of  Commons,  by  the  Manjuis  of  Granby,  in 
Noveml>er,  1777, and  rejected  by  a  vote  of  243  to  86,  in  the  third  year 
of  that  war. 

The  Ciiristinas  recess  of  18G2  soon  after  occurred,  and  mcnihcrs  sepa- 
rated. Reassembling  in  January,  the  drawn  battle  at  Murfreesboro  and 
the  costly  but  total  failure  before  Vicksburg  liad  been  added  to  the 
long  list  of  disasters.  About  this  time  Mr.  Y.  was  approaclied  by  letter 
and  personal  interview,  on  the  part  of  one  of  the  most  eminent  and  influ- 
ential supporters  of  tlie  Administration,  to  ascertain  whether  some 
means  could  not  be  devised  to  bring  about  a  cessation  of  hostilities 
through  foreign  mediation,  leaving  the  terms  of  adjustment  to  foreifn 
arbitration.  Whatever  the  design  of  this  proposition,  the  eticct  and 
issue  were  palpable — final  2)eaceable  separation.  Mr.  V.  was  ready  and 
anxious  for  any  thing  wliich  would  stop  the  war,  and  believing  that  me- 
diation would  at  that  time  be  "the  speediest,  easiest,  most  graceful 
mode"  of  effecting  liis  object,  Jie  agreed  to  support  it,  but  rc^jectcd 
''  arbitration"  as  both  impracticable  and  dangerous,  insisting  that  "  the 
people  of  the  several  States  here,  at  home,  must  be  the  final  arbitrators 
of  the  great  quarrel  in  America ;  and  tlie  people  and  States  of  the  North- 
west, the  mediators  wlio  should  stand,  like  the  prophet,  betwixt  tlie 
living  and  the  dead,  that  the  plague  of  disunion  might  be  stayed." 
Pending  this  correspondence  and  conference,  he  addressed  the  House 
on  the  14th  of  January,  reviewing  the  great  Civil  War  from  the  begin- 
ning to  that  date,  and  maintaining  the  practicability  and  necessity  of  re- 
construction through  peace  and  compromise.  The  speech  was  listened 
to  by  the  House  and  crowded  galleries  with  tlie  profoundest  attention ; 
and  when  publislied,  found  millions  of  readers  and  admirers.  A  polit- 
ical enemy  describing  the  delivery  of  it,  wrote :  "  He  waxes  more 
earnest  as  he  approaches  the  key  note  of  his  harangue,  and  with  an 
energy  and  force  that  makes  every  hearer — as  his  moral  nature  revolts 
from  the  bribe — acknowledge  all  the  more,  the  splendid  force  with 
which  the  tempter  urges  his  cause,  with  flashing  eye  and  livid  features 
and  extended  hand,  trembling  with  the  passion  of  his  utterance,  he 
hurls  the  climax  of  his  threatening  argument  again  upon  the  Republican 
side  of  the  House  :  '  Believe  me,  and  accept  it  as  you  did  not  the  solemn 
warnings  of  years  past,  the  daij  tohich  divides  the  North  from  the  South, 
that  self-mme  day  decrees  eternal  divorce  between  the  West  and  the  East.^  " 
But  that  part  of  the  speech  which  he  himself,  no  doubt,  preferred  to  any 
other,  was  the  following : 

"I  had  rather  my  right  arm  were  plucked  from  its  socket  and  cast 
into  eternal  burnings  than,  with  my  convictions,  to  have  thus  defiled 


BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIK.        '  41 

my  soul  with  the  guilt  of  moral  perjury.  Sir,  I  was  not  taught  in  that 
school  which  proclaims  that  'all  is  fair  in  politics,'  I  loathe,  abhor, 
and  detest  the  execrable  maxim.  I  stamp  upon  it.  No  State  can  en- 
dure a  single  gent?ration  whose  public  men  practise  it.  A^'hoever 
teaches  it  is  a  corrupter  of  youth.  What  we  most  want  in  these  times, 
and  at  all  times,  is  honest  and  independent  public  men.  That  man  who 
is  dishonest  in  politics,  is  not  honest  at  heart  in  any  thing ;  and  some- 
times moral  cowardice  is  dishonesty.  Do  right ;  and  trust  to  God,  and 
truth,  and  the  people.  Perish  office,  perish  honors,  perish  life  itself — 
but  do  the  thino-  that  is  rio-ht,  and  do  it  like  a  man,  I  did  it.  Car- 
tainly.  sir,  I  could  not  doubt  what  he  must  suffer  who  dare  defy  the 
opinions  and  passions,  not  to  say  the  madness,  of  twenty  millions  of 
people.  Had  I  not  read  history?  Did  I  not  know  human  nature? 
But  I  appealed  to  Time  ;  and  right  nobly  hath  the  Avenger  answered 
me." 

He  rejected  utterly  at  that  time,  both  in  private  letters  and  inter- 
views, and  in  his  speech,  the  idea  of  final  separation  as  the  object  of  a 
cessation  of  hostilities ;  and  in  this  he  uttered  but  the  almost  universal 
sentimeht  of  the  Democratic  party.  He  believed  that  the  Administra- 
tion was  then  willing  to  make  peace  upon  the  basis  of  such  separation, 
and  only  desired  to  have  their  opponents  commit  themselves  to  the  same 
policy,  thereby  sharing  the  odium  and  relieving  them,  in  part,  from  the 
responsibility  of  the  act.  Failing  in  this,  they  rallied  late  in  January, 
and  resolving  upon  a  more  "  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war"  than  ever 
before,  resorted,  at  last,  to  a  formal  suspension  of  the  habeas  corpus, 
an  indemnity  to  the  President  and  all  under  him,  and  the  Conscription. 
At  the  same  time  a  formidable  effort  was  made  to  revive  the  scheme  of 
a  new  "  conservative"  party  to  supersede  the  Democratic  organization 
and  oppose  radicalism,  but  support  the  war.  This  time  the  movement 
was  to  comprehend  a  portion  of  the  Abolition  or  "  Republican"  party ; 
and  chief  among  its  leaders  were  to  be  Thurlow  Weed  and  William  H. 
Seward.  Mr.  V.  could,  at  that  time,  obtain  no  opportunity  to  address 
a  public  meeting  in  New  York ;  but  being  invited  to  speak  in  Newark, 
New  Jersey,  very  near  to  the  former  city,  he  gladly  availed  himself 
of  the  occasion  to  denounce,  in  the  severest  terms,  the  proposed  arrange- 
ment. Whatever  may  have  been  the  effect  of  the  speech,  it  is  certain 
that  the  movement  utterly  failed. 

Meantime,  in  Congress,  all  the  various  war  measures  were  pushed  to 
the  utmost.  The  Conscription  bill  called  forth  a  vehement  debate.  By 
accident  it  had  passed  the  Senate  without  opposition,  while  in  the  House 
it  was  announced  that  no  debate  would  be  allowed,  and  the  •"  previous 
question"  was  moved,  to  force  an  immediate  vote  upon  it.  But  the 
minority  were  resolved  to  be  heard,  and  by  parliamentary  manoeuvre 


42  •       BIOGKAPIIICA  L    MEMOIK. 

called,  in  cant  phrase,  "  fillibustcrlng,"  compelled  the  majority  to  yield 
the  point  of  discussion  and  amendment.  One  of  the  ablest  debates 
ever  heard  in  the  Uouse  of  Ilcpresentativcs  followed.  Crittenden,  Pen- 
dleton, Voorhees,  Biddle,  and  others,  put  forth  their  whole  strength 
Mr.  Vallandigiiam  addressed  the  House  at  night  on  the  2:3d  of  Febru. 
ary,in  a  speech,  unprepared  and  without  a  single  note  except  the  paging 
of  the  extracts  which  he  read,  but  which,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Voor- 
hees, "held  the  House  spell-bound;"  many  upon  both  sides  regarding 
it  as  his  ablest  Congressional  effort,  surpassing  in  argumentative  force 
and  concise  vehemence,  his  speech  of  the  14:th  of  January.  His  rebuke 
of  an  Administration  member,  for  an  otfensive  interruption  soon  after 
he  took  the  floor,  called  forth  applause,  for  the  first  time  for  him  in  that 
Congress,  from  the  galleries.  The  bill,  unconstitutional  and  odious  as 
it  still  is  as  an  act  of  Congress,  ^yas  stripped  of  some  of  its  worst 
features.  Thus  mucli,  at  least,  was  gained  by  the  debate ;  though  at 
last  "  the  dumb  eloquence  of  numbers"  prevailed  against  the  vehement 
oratory  of  Truth. 

During  the  session  he  had  occasion  to  defend  his  speech  of  the  20th 
of  February,  1861,  and  the  constitutional  amendments  in  support  of 
which  it  was  delivered,  from  the  gross  perversions  of  a  colleague  ;  and 
just  at  the  close  of  the  session,  to  reply  to  a  personal  assault  and  refute 
a  petty  falsehood  repeated  in  the  House  by  another  colleague. 

The  day  after  the  adjournment  of  Congress  he  arrived  at  Philadelphia, 
and  was  there  first  entertained  at  dinner  at  the  Girard  House ;  then  in 
the  evening  he  briefly  addressed  an  immense  concourse  of  people  in 
front  of  the  hotel,  and  finally,  later  at  night,  partook  of  the  elegant  hos- 
pitalities of  the  "Philadelphia  Club."  Visiting  New  York  city  next, 
he  addressed  a  laro;e  and  enthusiastic  assemblage  at  the  rooms  of  the 
Young  Men's  Democratic  Union  Association,  in  a  speech  devoted  to  a 
review  of  the  legislation  of  the  session  which  had  just  closed  (especially 
of  the  Conscription  act),  and  a  fuller  development  of  his  theory  or  plan 
of  reconstruction  through  peace  and  negotiation.  The  next  day  he 
visited  Albany  on  invitation  for  political  conference,  and  a  day  or  two 
later  spoke  at  a  Democratic  meeting  in  Stamford,  Connecticut,  in  support 
of  Thomas  H.  Seymour,  then  a  candidate  for  Governor  of  that  State. 
Returning  home  on  the  13th  of  March,  he  was  met  at  the  depot  by 
thousands  of  his  constituents,  and  borne  amid  great  cheering  to  the 
court-house,  where  he  was  honored  with  an  enthusiastic  reception, 
which  he  duly  acknowledged  in  a  brief  address,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  said :  "  I  would  resist  no  law  by  force,  but  would  endure  almost 
every  other  wrong,  as  long  as  free  discussion,  free  assemblages  of  the 
people,  and  a  free  ballot  remain ;  but  the  moment  they  are  attacked,  I 
would  resist."     Soon  after,  at  a  very  large  meeting  in  Hamilton,  he 


BIOGRAPHICAL    aiEMOIE.  43 

vindicated  the  right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms,  and  denounced, 
in  just  and  indignant  terms,  a  recent  military  order,  "  Number  15,"  for- 
bidding citizens  to  purchase  arms  or  ammunition.  He  declared  it  to  be 
in  direct  conflict  with  "  General  Order  Number  One,  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  George  Washington  commanding,"  and  concluded 
thus :  "  Sir,  I  repeat  now  what  I  believe  to  be  the  true  programme  for 
these  times :  try  every  question  of  law  in  your  courts,  and  every  ques- 
tion of  politics  before  the  people,  and  through  the  ballot-box ;  maintain 
your  constitutional  civil  rights,  at  all  hazards,  against  military  usurpation. 
Let  there  be  no  resistance  to  law,  but  meet  and  repel  all  mobs  and  mob 
violence  by  force  and  arms  on  the  spot." 

During  the  month  of  April  he  addressed  large  public  meetings  in 
various  parts  of  the  State ;  and  in  a  bold  and  candid  letter  to  a  gentle- 
man of  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  urged  that  antagonism  was  the  great 
element  of  party  enthusiasm  and  strength ;  and  that  as  the  Administra- 
tion were  now  contending  solely  for  unity  and  a  strong  government 
through  war,  and  failing  in  that,  then  disunion,  both  policy  and  duty 
required  that  the  Democratic  party  should  put  itself  in  direct  antago- 
nism by  declaring  at  once  for  Union  and  constitutional  liberty  through 
an  honorable  peace. 

Meantime  the  renewed  conspiracy  of  the  Administration  to  suppress 
freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  and  to  break  down  all  party  oppo- 
sition, and  thereby  to  perpetuate  their  power  by  force,  became,  every 
day,  more  and  more  palpable.  For  obvious  reasons,  it  was  resolved  that 
the  Democratic  party  in  the  Northwest  should  be  first  crushed,  and  the 
Northwestern  States  reduced  to  the  subjugated  condition  of  the  Border 
Slave  States.  A  fit  instrument  for  this  execrable  work  was  speedily 
found.  Ambrose  E.  Burnside,  "  a  name  infamous  forever  in  the  ears  of 
all  lovers  of  constitutional  liberty,"  Avas  sent  out  from  Washington, 
reeking  with  the  blood  of  his  own  men  massacred  at  Fredericksburg,  as 
commander  or  military  satj-ap  of  the  Department  of  the  Ohio,  com- 
prising the  States  of  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois.  A  native 
of  Indiana,  but  of  New  England  parentage,  and  "  raised"  in  Rhode 
Island  ;  weak  in  intellect  and  with  an  hereditary  taint  of  hypochondriac 
insanity ;  a  renegado  from  the  Democratic  party ;  ignorant  of  the  first 
principles  of  civil  liberty,  and  servile  in  his  sycophancy  to  powey,  he 
entered  upon  his  task  with  the  violence  of  a  military  fanatic,  and  at  the 
same  time,  the  superserviceable  zeal  of  a  minion  eager  to  anticipate  the 
secret  desires  of  his  master,  and  earn  the  approving 

"  Hubert,  I  love  tliee  ; 
"Well,  I'll  not  say  what  I  intend  for  thee." 

Incapable  of  public  speaking,  his  first  appearance,  nevertheless,  was 


44  BiOGUAi'HicAL  :memoir. 

as  an  orator  at  an  Abolition  meeting  at  Hamilton  ;  his  next,  as  author 
of  "  Order  Thirty-Eight,"  with  which  his  name  will  forever  remain  as- 
sociated. It  was  a  comprehensive  and  sweeping  edict,  under  which 
every  act  of  atrocity  and  outrage,  including  murder  itself,  could  be  and 
was  perpetrated.  For  the  first  time  a  permanent  "  military  commis- 
sion" for  the  trial  of  citizens,  men  and  women,  was  established  in  a 
State  not  in  insurrection,  and  where  the  process  of  the  courts  never  for 
a  moment  had  been  interrupted.  One  of  the  earliest  victims  was  a  deli- 
cate and  elegant  lady  from  Kentucky,  and  soon  the  military  prisons  were 
crowded.  Full  of  the  insolence  of  his  satrapy,  Burnside  resolved  to 
arrest  Mr.  Vallandioham,  The  State  Convention  had  been  fixed  for 
the  11th  of  June.  Aware  of  the  purpose  and  plan  to  subjugate  the 
Northwest,  that  gentleman  had,  along  with  others,  labored  earnestly  to 
anticipate  the  movement,  by  bringing  the  convention  forward  to 
April,  and  making  nominations  before  the  conspiracy  was  ready  for 
development.  He  expected  to  be  nominated  for  Governor,  and  was 
satisfied,  that  if  the  Democratic  party  should  place  its  candidates  before 
the  people,  and  open  the  political  campaign  first,  neither  himself  nor 
any  one  else  would  be  molested.  Unfortunately,  the  proposition  failed 
by  a  tie-vote  in  the  committee.  In  the  last  week  in  April,  a  third 
"  General  Order"  was  announced  at  Indianapolis,  expressly  forbidding, 
in  so  many  words,  any  criticism  of  the  policy  or  conduct  of  the  Admin- 
istration. Mr.  Vallandioham  was  at  the  time  in  Columbus,  and  im- 
mediately held  a  consultation  with  a  number  of  his  friends,  declaring 
to  them  that  the  crisis  had  now  arrived,  and  that  some  one  must  take 
the  responsibility  of  meeting  it  at  once,  and  endure  the  consequences. 
It  was  material  to  ascertain  whether  the  spirit  of  the  people  was  utterly 
broken,  and  ready  for  unlimited  and  slavish  submission.  Accordingly, 
it  was  agreed  that  a  meeting  for  Thuisday  evening,  the  30th  of  April, 
should  be  held  in  front  of  the  State  House ;  and  here,  in  a  calm  and 
well-considered  speech,  he  announced  his  firm  purpose  to  criticise  and 
condemn  any  and  all  acts  and  policies  of  the  party  and  men  in  power, 
whenever,  in  his  judgment,  they  deserved  censure,  and  in  precisely  the 
same  manner  and  with  the  same  freedom  as  in  times  past.  "  If  it  be 
really  the  design  of  the  Administration,"  said  he,  "to  force  this  issue, 
then,  come  arrest,  come  imprisonment,  come  exile,  come  death  itself, 
I  am  ready  here  to-night  to  meet  it."  But  it  was  not  for  this  speech 
that  he  was  to  be  molested.  Burnside  had  made  other  arrangements, 
better  suited  to  his  narrow  intellect  and  crooked  propensities,  Mr.  Y. 
had  at  first  declined  to  speak  at  the  Mount  Vernon  meeting  to  be  held 
on  the  1st  of  May  ;  but  finally,  the  day  before,  had  yielded  to  the  ur- 
gency of  a  special  messenger  sent  down  to  him  at  Columbus.  His  pres- 
ence, therefore,  was  almost  accidental ;  but  his  name  had  been  an- 


BIOGKAPIIICAL    MEMOIR.  45 

nonnccd,  a-nd  Burnsidc  had  ordered  two  of  his  subaltern  officers  to  strip 
themselves  of  their  uniforms,  and  attend  the  meeting  in  the  disguise  of 
citizen's  clothes  as  spies,  and  report  his  speech.^  lie  spoke  briedy  and 
without  special  effort.  Returning  home  the  next  day,  he  first  heard 
rumors  of  his  intended  arrest.  On  Sunday,  the  3d  of  ^lay,  they  be- 
came more  rife,  and  his  friends  proposed  to  organize  to  resist  as  in  the 
year  preceding,  but  he  declined,  saying,  that  if  this  were  done  now,  he 
should  be  again  obliged  to  remain  in  Dayton  all  summer,  and  thus  be 
unable  to  canvass  the  State ;  since,  if  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  xVdmin- 
istration  to  arrest  him,  it  would  be  effected  the  first  time  he  should 
leave  home,  and  when  he  would  be  incapable  of  resistance.  On  the  4th, 
an  Administration  journal  announced  that  officers  had  been  sent  up  in 
disguise  to  Mount  Vernon  to  watch  and  report  him,  and  that  he  would 
have  trouble.  At  half-past  two  o'clock  the  next  morning.  May  5, 1863, 
he  was  aroused  from  his  shimbers  by  a  loud  knocking  at  his  front  door. 
Rising  and  inquiring  from  the  window  what  was  wanted,  the  officer  in 
command  of  the  detachment  of  soldiers,f  answered  that  he  had  been 
sent  by  General  Eurnside  to  arrest  him.  Mr.  Y.  denied  the  right  of  mili- 
tary 9rrest,  and  refused  to  come  down.  After  repeated  threats  to  shoot, 
intermingled  with  entreaties,  the  officer  ordered  the  front  door  to  be 
forced,  but  it  was  found  too  strong,  and  a  door  in  thQ  rear  was  finally 
broken  down  with  an  axe,  and  next  the  door  of  an  upper  bedchamber, 
and  finally  a  third  door  opening  into  the  room  where,  after  dressing, 
he  had  retired.  The  house  was  now  full  of  soldiers,  though  the  offi- 
cer in  command  had  not  ventured  himself  to  enter.  Half  a  score  of 
muskets  were  pointed  instantly  at  him,  whereupon  he  said,  "  You  have 
now  broken  open  my  house  and  overpowered  me  by  superior  force,  and 
I  am  obliged  to  surrender."  He  then  passed  out  through  the  shattered 
panels  of  his  doors  into  the  street ;  the  bugle  sounded  the  recall,  and, 
surrounded  by  soldier}',  he  was  marched  to  the  depot,  and  thence  car- 
ried by  the  cars  to  Cincinnati,  where,  soon  after  daylight,  he  was  taken 
to  the  military  prison,  Kemper  Barracks.  Here  he  remained  till  even- 
ing, when,  by  order  of  Burnside,  who  had  become  greatly  alarmed  lest 
there  should  be  a  popular  outbreak  and  rescue,  he  was  hurried  across 
the  river  to  Newport  Barracks,  and  there  locked  up  for  the  night 
Next  morning  he  was  obliged  to  witness  from  his  window  the  "  roll- 
call"  at  reveille,  with  the  "  Stars  and  Stripes"  waving  over  him  and  the 
band  playing  "  Hail  Columbia,  Happy  Land !"  Soon  after  he  was 
taken  again  across  into  Cincinnati,  and  thrust  before  the  military  com- 
mission, upon  a  "  Charge  and  Specification,"  setting  forth  that,  in  vio- 

*  The  names  of  these  two  miscreants  were  H.  E.  Hill  and  John  A.  Means, 
both  captains  in  the  115th  Regiment  of  Ohio  Volunteers. 
f  Captain  Charles  G.  Hutton,  of  Burnside's  staff. 


40  BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIR. 

lation  of  Order  Thirty-Eight,  at  Mount  Vernon,  on  the  1st  of  May,  in  a 
public  speech  to  the  people,  he  had  declared  the  war  to  be  cruel  and 
unnecessary ;  not  waged  for  the  prescFvation  of  the  Union,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  crushing  out  liberty  and  erecting  a  despotism — a  war  for  the 
freedom  of  the  blacks,  and  the  enslavement  of  the  whites ;  that  he  had 
denounced  Order  Thirty-Eight  as  a  usurpation  of  power,  and  declared 
that  the  sooner  the  people  should  inform  the  minions  of  usurped  power, 
that  they  would  not  submit  to  such  restrictions  upon  their  liberties,  the 
better ;  and  had  asserted  that  ho  was  at  all  times  and  upon  all  occa- 
sions resolved  to  do  what  he  could  to  defeat  the  attempts  which  were 
being  made  to  build  up  a  monarchy  upon  the  ruins  of  free  government. 
Such  was  the  "  crime,"  and  none  other,  and  no  more,  upon  which  he 
was  to' be  mocked  with  a  "trial."  Denying  the  authority  and  juris- 
diction of  the  military  commission,*  he  refused  to  plead  ;  but  the  case 
was  ordered  to  proceed.  One  only  of  the  members  was  a  citizen  of 
Ohio ;  one  was  an  unnaturalized  foreign  adventurer ;  another  had  been 
convicted  of  being  the  keeper  of  a  disreputable  house,  while  tlie  Judge 
Advocate  subsequently  plead  guilty  to  certain  "  nimble  caperings"  at 
the  transom  -light  of  a  lady's  bed-chamber  in  the  Burnett  House.  They 
had  been  fitly  selected  for  their  work,  and  they  did  it  accordingly. 
Two  days  were  spent  nominally  in  the  "  trial ;"  at  the  end  of  which 
Mr.  V.  presented  a  brief  and  pointed  "protest,"  repeating  his  denial  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Court,  demanding  a  judicial  trial  by  jury,  and 
vindicating  his  right  to  make  the  speech  for  which  ostensibly  he  had 
been  arrested.  Beyond  this  he  declined  to  submit  any  thing.  The 
finding  and  sentence  of  the  military  commission  were  not  made  public 
till  the  18th.  Meantime  he  had  been  removed  to  the  Burnett  House 
(Burnside's  head-quarters),  where  in  room  "  246,"  in  the  attic,  he  was 
kept  under  a  strong  guard,  who  were  ordered,  in  case  of  any  attempt 
at  rescue  or  escape,  to  put  him  to  death.  Similar  orders  had  been 
issued  to  his  captors  previous  to  his  arrest. 

During  the  few  hours  he  Avas  in  Kemper  Barracks  prison,  Mr.  Val- 
LANDiGHAM  wrote  a  brief  address  to  the  Democrats  of  Ohio,  and  found 
means  to  pass  it  out  for  publication.  He  knew  that  the  object  of  his 
arrest  was  to  strike  terror  into  others,  and  lie  was  anxious  to  make  it 
known  that  he  himself  was  calm  and  unmoved,  and  to  enjoin  upon  his 
friends  to  "  stand  firm  and  felter  not  an  instant."  The  day  of  his  arrest 
was  one  of  intense  excitement  in   Dayton.     Thousands  thronged  the 

*  The  members  of  this  military  commission  (which  sat  at  the  St.  Charles  Res- 
taurant on  Tliird  Street),  were  Brig.-Gen.  Robert  B.  Potter,  Col.  John  F.  De  Courcy. 
Lieut.-Col.  E.  R.  Goodrich,  Maj.  John  Mason  BrowTi,  of  Kentuci<y,  Maj.  J.  L.  Van- 
Buren,  Maj.  A.  II.  Eitch,  Capt.  P.  M.  Lj-dig,  and  Judge-Advocate  Capt.  James 
Madison  Cutta. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIR.  47 

streets,  and,  at  nightfall,  the  agitated  mass  broke  out  into  violence. 
But  meantime,  Burnside,  in  great  alarm,  had  sent  up  several  companies 
of  soldiers  to  suppress  the  disturbance,  and  the  next  day  declared  mar- 
tial law  throughout  the  county.  More  than  thirty  citizens  were  arrested 
and  dragged  down  to  the  military  prisons  at  Cincinnati;  and  for  six 
weeks,  every  Demoerat  of  Montgomery  was  at  the  mercy  of  an  inebri- 
ate military  commandant.  Burnside's  own  brutal  conduct  towards  the 
prisoners  was  consistent  with  his  real  character.  He  visited  them  more 
than  once,  and  with  oaths  and  curses,  and,  in  one  instance,  with  blows, 
vented  his  rage  upon  them.  During  the  whole  time  that  Mr.  Val- 
LANDiGHAM  was  in  his  custody,  he  was  in  constant  fear  of  assassination, 
or,  at  least,  of  a  popular  outbreak  and  rescue;  and  while  liis  prisoner 
enjoyed  calm  and  unbroken  slumbers  aloft,  the  jailor  trembled  below, 
"  afraid  for  the  terror  by  night."  A  guard  of  soldiers,  with  fixed  bay- 
onets, and  loaded  muskets,  marched  with  Mr.  V.  to  and  from  the 
"  Commission,"  and  a  squad  of  ten  regulars  kept  watch  day  and  night, 
over  his  room,  while  sentinels  paced  the  pavements  below.  The  author 
of  the  arrest  had  greatly  misread  the  feelings  of  the  people.  Nearly 
everywhere,  and  by  all  parties,  the  act  was  at  first  condemned.  But 
one  newspaper  in  New  York  city,  the  Daily  Times,  justified  it.  Im- 
mense and  violent  public  meetings  were  held  all  over  the  country  in 
denunciation.  Every  day  the  popular  indignation  grew  stronger  and 
more  intense.  It  had  been  Burnside's  intention  to  arrest  all  the  chief 
Democratic  leaders  of  the  Northwest ;  and  in  some  cases,  the  orders 
had  been  made  out.  In  alarm,  he  was  now  obliged  to  pause.  His 
attempt  soon  after  to  suppress  the  Chicago  Times,  called  forth  so  pow- 
erful an  insurrectionary  feeling,  that  the  .President  was  forced  to  revoke 
the  order.  Thus,  through  premature  and  too  violent  development,  the 
whole  conspiracy  to  break  down  party  opposition  to  the  men  in  power, 
and  subjugate  the  Northwest,  utterly  failed.  "Order  Thirty-Eight" 
died.  The  counter-revolution,  at  last,  fairly  set  in,  and  continued  with 
increasing  violence,  till  the  Confederate  invasion  of  Pennsylvania  and 
the  consequent  fall  of  Vicksburg  reversed  the  whole  current,  and  re- 
vived the  failing  fortunes  of  the  war-party  and  the  Administration. 

Two  days  after  the  "  trial"  before  the  military  commission,  the 
Hon.  George.  E.  Pugh,  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Vallandigiiam,  moved  for  a 
■writ  of  habeas  corpus,  before  Humphrey  H.  Leavitt,  Judge  of  the 
"United  States  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  Ohio.  No  suspension 
of  the  privilege  of  the  writ  had,  at  that  time,  been  declared  under  the 
act  of  Congress,  and  the  pretence  of  a  Presidential  right  to  suspend  it 
had  been  exploded.  Judge  Leavitt  required  that  notice  of  the  applica- 
tion should  be  first  given  to  Burnside,  who  submitted  an  extraordinary 
paper,  justifying  the  act,  and  claiming  a  constitutional  and  legal  right 


48  BIOGEAPHICAL    MEMOIR. 

to  commit  it,  as  military  commandant  of  the  Department  of  the  Ohio, 
which  he  chose  to  regard  as  a  vast  camp,  every  citizen  within  its  limits 
being  sulyjcct  to  military  law.  The  case  was  opened  on  the  11th,  by 
Mr.  Pugh,  in  an  argument  of  great  ability  and  consummate  eloquence. 
He  was  replied  to,  on  behalf  of  Burnside,  by  two  members  of  the  Cin- 
cinnati bar,  in  elaborate  speeches,  appropriated  and  modernized  from 
the  crown  lawyers  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First  and  James  the 
Second.*  Jlr.  Pugh  rejoined  in  an  argument  of  even  greater  ability 
than  his  first ;  and  Judge  Leavitt,  after  two  or  three  days'  consideration, 
and  upon  consultation  with  Burnside,  refused  the  writ  upon  the 
grounds — tirst,  that  the  arrest  was  legal ;  and,  second,  that  though  it 
had  been  illegal,  it  was  "  morally  certain  that  the  writ  would  not  be 
obeyed,"  and  therefore  ought  not  to  be  issued.  Not  since  the  days  of 
Empson,  Dudley,  or  Jeffreys,  had  such  judicial  servility  to  executive 
power  been  exhibited.  Never,  except  upon  the  trial  of  John  Hampden, 
in  the  ship-money  case,  was  a  like  "  opinion"  pronounced  from  the 
bench.  Let  a  single  sentence  suffice  :  "  The  sole  question,"  says  this 
most  righteous  judge,  "  is  whether  the  arrest  was  legal ;  and,  as  before 
remarked,  its  legality  depends  on  the  necessity  which  existed  for  making 
it,  and  of  that  necessity,  for  the  reason  stated,  this  court  cannot  ju- 
dicially determine."  And  yet  this  monstrous  doctrine  is  among  the 
most  moderate  utterances  of  the  opinion.  The  twelve  judges  of  the 
First  Charles  were  not  more  complaisant.  "  There  is  a  rule  of  law,"  said 
one  of  them,  "and  a  rule  of  government;  and  many  things  which  may 
not  be  done  by  the  rule  of  law,  may  be  done  by  the  rule  of  govern- 
ment ;"  and  they  all  agreed  that  "  when  the  good  and  safety  of  the 
kingdom  in  general  is  concerned,  and  the  whole  kingdom  in  danger, 
the  king  is  the  sole  judge  both  of  the  danger,  and  when  and  how  the 
same  is  to  be  prevented  and  avoided."  The  English  judges  held  their 
oflBces  during  the  pleasure  of  their  master,  the  king.  The  American 
judge  held  his  for  life,  and  under  a  written  constitution,  which  expressly 
declared  that  no  citizen  should  be  arrested,  "  except  upou  due  process 
of  law."f 

Two  days  after  the  refusal  of  the  habeas  corpus,  the  "  sentence"  of 
the  military  commission  and  the  approval  of  it  by  Burnside,  was  made 
public,  condemning  Mr.  Vallandigham  to  "  close  confinement"  in  Fort 
Warren,  Boston  harbor,  during  the  war.     Imprisonment  on  the  Dry 


*  Their  names  were  Flamen  Ball  and  Aaron  F.  Perry. 

f  Judi^'e  Leavitt,  while  a  member  of  Congress,  had  received  his  appointment 
nearly  thirty  years  previously  from  President  Jackson ;  but  soon  after,  upon  the 
currency  question,  doserted  him.  and  never  afterwards  claimed  to  be,  or  was  rec- 
ognized as  a  member  of  the  Democratic  party. 


BIOaEAPHICAL   MEMOIR.  49 

Tortugas  Islands  liad,  at  first,  been  contemplated;  and  many  •believed 
that  sentence  of  death  had  been  Burnside's  original  purpose,  from  wliich 
he  was  deterred  alone  by  the  violence  of  the  popular  indignation  which 
the  arrest  had  excited.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  he  certainlv  iuj 
sisted  to  a  distinguished  gentleman  of  Cincinnati,  that  he  might  justly 
put  Mr.  V.  to  "death  for  a  speech  delivered  by  him  at  Batavia,  in  April. 

On  the  19th  of  May,  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  transferred  from  the 
Burnett  House  to  the  gunboat  "  Exchange,"  then  lying  in  the  Ohio,  op- 
posite Cincinnati,  near  Newport  Barracks.  The  same  evening  Abraham 
Lincoln  changed  the  "  sentence,"  and  ordered  Burnside  to  send  him 
under  secure  guard,  to  General  Rosecrans,  to  be  by  him  put  beyond  the 
Federal  military  lines ;  ordering  further  that  in  case  of  his  return  within 
the  lines,  he  should  be  arrested  and  kept  in  close  custody  for  the  term 
originally  specified.  This  order  was  executed  a  day  or  two  after,  and 
he  arrived  by  rail  from  Louisville, '  on  Sunday  night,  May  24,  at 
Rosecrans's  head-quarters,  Murfreesboro,  Tennessee.  By  that  officer, 
after  a  few  moments  plain  but  respectful  talk  upon  both  sides,  he  was 
properly  received  and  hospitably  entertained  for  several  hours ;  and  at  two 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  25th,  under  a  numerous  guard  of  cavalry, 
left  for  the  Confederate  lines,  by  way  gf  the  Shelby ville  pike,  halting  at  the 
house  of  a  Mr.  Butler  till  daybreak,  and  then  resuming  the  march  to  the 
"  neutral  ground,"  where,  at  the  house  of  a  Mrs.  Alexander,  he  break- 
fasted, while  the  Federal  officers,  under  a  flag  of 'truce,  made  known  their 
purpose.  After  some  delay  they  returned,  and  he  was  taken  to  within 
a  short  distance  of  the  extreme  picket-line,  and  there  set  down  at  the 
house  of  Jeremiah  Odell,  first  in  presence  of  the  Federal  officers,  having 
addressed  these  words  to  the  Confederate  soldier  who  had  been  sent 
out  to  meet  him :  "  I  am  a  citizen  of  Ohio  and  of  the  United  States. 
I  am  here  within  your  lines  by  force  and  against  ray  will.  I,  therefore, 
surrender  myself  to  you  as  a  prisoner  of  war."  He  knew  well  the 
shallow  object  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  banishing  hiiu  within  the  Con- 
federate lines,  and  the  moment  it  was  announced  to  him  on  board  the 
gunboat  at  Cincinnati,  had  resolved  to  defeat  it  at  the  outset. 

For  several  hours,  while  the  answer  of  General  Bragg,  who  was  six- 
teen miles  distant,  was  being  obtained  to  the  question  whether  he  should 
be  received,  he  remained  in  the  "  neutral  ground."  They  were  hours 
of  solitude,  but  calmly  spent — the  bright  sun  shining  in  the  clear  sky 
above  him,  and  faith  in  God  and  the  future  burning  in  his  heart.  At 
noon,  a  favorable  answer  having  been  returned,  he  was  received  within 
the  Confederate  lines,  and  passing,  under  cavalry  escort,  through  nume- 
rous camps,  reached  General  Bragg's  head-quarters,  at  Shelbyville,  soon 
after  dusk.  Here  he  was  kindly  received,  and  directed  to  the  house  of 
Mrs,  Eakin,  where  a  spacious  and  pleasant  l-oom  had  been  provided  for 
4 


V 


N 


50  BlOGKAPniCAL    MEMOIR. 

him.  "I  retired  at  once,"  lie  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  having  slept  but 
half  an  hour  since  Saturday  night,  and  was  awakened  early  next  morn- 
ing by  the  rays  of  a  bright  Southern  sun  piercing  tlie  eastern  window 
of  my  room.  There  w'cre  no  sentinels  at  my  door,  and  I  walked  out 
iflichallenged."  In  Shelbyville  he  remained  a  week  in  almost  entire 
seclusion,  passing  his  time  in  reading.  On  the  1st  of  June  he  was 
directed  to  report  on  parole,  to  General  Whiting,  at  Wilmington,  Xorth 
Carolina;  and  the  next  day  left  by  the  cars,  passing  through  TuUahoma, 
Chattanooga,"  Knoxville,  and  Bristol,  to  Lynchburg,  where  he  was  met 
by  Colonel  Robert  Ould,  the  Confederate  commissioner  of  prisoners, 
and  by  him  accompanied  through  Petersburg  to  AV'ilmington,  where  he 
reported  to  General  Whiting.  At  every  depot  from  Shelbyville  to  the 
end  of  his  journey  of  more  than  a  thousand  miles,  large  numbers  of 
the  people  wa-o-  assembled  to  meet  him ;  but  no  public  demonstration 
was  attempted,  and  he  passed  quietly  to  his  destination.  Before  leaving 
Cincinnati,  he  had  resolved  to  reach  Canada  at  the  earliest  moment;  and 
in  case  he  found  blockade-running  from  the  Eastern  ports  impracticable 
or  too  hazardous,  then  to  cross  the  Mississippi  and  make  his  way 
through  Texas  to  Matamoras,  and  thence  by  steamer  to  Havana  and 
Halifax.  But  at  that  time  vessels  were  runninfj  to  and  from  Wilmino-ton 
almost  with  the  regularity  of  packets ;  and  after  a  sojourn  there  of  a  few 
days,  he  took  passage  on  the  steamer  "  Cornubia,"  Captain  Gayle,  and 
on  the  evening  of  the  "lYth  of  June,  ran  out  in  safety  through  the 
blockading  squadron,  and  arrived  in  Bermuda  on  the  20th.  In  these 
quiet  and  very  pleasant  islands  he  remained  ten  days,  and  thence  by 
steamer  went  to  Halifax,  landing  on  the  5th  of  July,  From  Halifax  by 
way  of  Truro,  he  travelled  to  Pictou,  and  thence  by  steamer  up  the 
Gulf  and  River  Saint  Lawrence,  to  Quebec,  Avhere,  as  in  Bermuda  and 
at  Halifax,  he  was  cordially  and  honorably  received.  At  the  Club- 
House  he  was  tendered  and  accepted  a  very  handsome  entertainment, 
at  which  he  met  a  number  of  the  most  distinguished  gentlemen  of 
Canada.  The  same  evening  he  left  by  special  train  generously  provided 
for  him,  for  the  Clifton  House,  Niagara  Falls,  where  he  arrived  on  the 
15th  of  July,  after  a  journey  of  more  than  four  thousand  miles  by  land 
and  sea,  and  twelve  days  earlier  than  the  day  wdiich  he  had  designated 
to  his  friends  previous  to  leaving  Cincinnati.  Of  the  incidents  and 
adventures  of  this  long  journey  the  time  has  not  yet  come  to  write. 

The  day  he  left  for  the  South  upon  the  gunboat,  he  published  a  brief 
address  to  his  party  in  Ohio,  in  which  he  declared  that  in  vain  the 
malice  of  enemies  should  contrive  to  give  color  to  the  calumnies  and 
misrepresentations  of  the  past  two  years  ;  that  no  order  of  banishment 
executed  by  superior  force,  could  release  him  from  his  obligations  or 
deprive  him  of  his  rights  as  a  citizen  of  Ohio  and  of  the  United  States  ; 


BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIR.  51 

that  lie  should  maintain  his  allegiance  as  such  citizen,  wherever  ho 
might  be,  till  his  return ;  and  that  meantime  he  did  not  doubt  that  the 
people  of  Ohio,  not  cowering  for  a  moment  before  either  the  threat 
or  the  exercise  of  arbitrary  power,  would  in  every  trial  prove  themselves 
worthy  to  be  called  freemen.    * 

The  Democratic  State  Convention  of  Ohio  assembled  at  Columbus, 
on  the  11th  of  June.  In  many  respects  it  was  the  most  remarkable 
political  meeting  ever  held  in  the  "United  States.  Although  but  a 
delegate  convention,  the  people  came  up  from  every  county,  to  tlie 
number  of  more  than  twenty  thousand.  Even  from  parts  of  the  State 
traversed  by  railroads,  many  travelled  in  wagons,  and  bringing  provisions 
with  them,  camped  out.  At  daylight  on  the  morning  of  the  11th,  three 
several  orators,  from  as  many  different  stands  in  the  State  Houseyard, 
were  haranguing  the  people.  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  nominated  for 
Governor,  by  a  vote  of  four  hundred  and  eleven  to  thirteen,  and  the 
nomination  ratified  by  the  assembled  multitudes,  by  acclamation.  Un- 
fortunately, the  committee  on  resolutions  refused  to  make  the  direct 
issue  of  PEACE,  and  chose  to  put  the  campaign  solely  upon  the  question 
of  personal  liberty — one  of  the  noblest,  certainly,  and  most  momentous 
ever  submitted  to  any  people.  Throughout  the  entire  canvass  it  was 
pressed  to  the  utmost,  but  the  subject  of  peace  almost  totally  ignored. 

In  every  State,  by  the  Democratic  and  Conservative  parties  and  press, 
the  nomination  was  hailed  with  extraordinary  enthusiasm,  and  few,  at 
that  time,  doubted  his  triumphant  election.  But  when  he  had  arrived  at 
Niagara  Falls,  a  month  later,  all  was  changed.  The  invasion  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  the  victories  of  Gettysburg,  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson,  had 
reversed  the  counter-revolution;  the  "rebellion"  was,  in  the  belief  of 
nineteen-twentieths  of  the  people,  at  last  really  crushed  out,  and  the 
whole  country  once  more  was  made  to  cry  aloud  for  war.  No  man  was 
more  conscious  of  the  immense  change  in  public  affairs  and  the  popular 
sentiment  which  three  weeks  had  brought  forth,  than  Mr.  Vallandi- 
gham. Yet  his  fixed  convictions  were  not  shaken  for  a  moment,  and  in 
the  "  Address  "  published  by  him  at  that  time,  he  alluded  to  the  subject 
in  these  words,  which  were  then  to  the  Republicans  foolishness,-and  to 
his  friends  a  stumbling-block.  Bat  he  knew  them  to  be  well  founded, 
and  events  since  have  more  than  justifed  him : 

"  If  this  civil  war,"  he  wrote,  "  is  to  terminate  only  by  the  subjuga- 
tion or  submission  of  the  South  to  force  and  arms,  the  infant  of  to-day 
will  not  live  to  see  the  end  of  it.  No,  in  another  way  only  can  it  be 
brought  to  a  close.  Travelling  a  thousand  miles  and  more,  through 
nearly  one-half  of  the  Confederate  States,  and  sojourning  for  a  while  at 
widely  diflferent  points,  I  met  not  one  man,  woman,  or  child,  who  was 
not  resolved  to  perish  rather  than  yield  to  the  pressure  of  arms  even  in 


52  BIOGEAPTIICAL    MEMOIR. 

the  most  desperate  extremity.  And  whatever  may  and  must  he  the 
varying  fortune  of  the  war,  in  all  whicli  I  recognize  the  hand  of  Provi- 
dence pointing  visibly  to  the  ultimate  issue  of  this  great  trial  of  the 
States  and  people  of  America,  they  are  better  prepared  now  every  way 
to  make  good  their  inexorable  purpose,  tlifm  at  any  period  since  the  he- 
ginning  of  the  struggle.  These  may  indeed  be  unwelcome  truths  ;  but 
they  are  addressed  only  to  candid  and  honest  men." 

At  the  same  time,  nominated  while  still  in  the  Confederate  States, 
and  thus  honored  by  the  most  distinguished  testimony  of  public  confi- 
dence which  could  be  bestowed,  he  felt  constrained  to  accept  the  issue 
just  as  it  had  been  tendered  in  the  "  platform  "  of  the  Convention  ;  and 
for  the  moment  to  ignore,  though  never  to  retract,  his  well-known  and 
long-settled  opinions  and  convictions  upon  the  question  of  the  war  and 
peace.  And  this  position  he  consistently  maintained  throughout  the 
canvass;  alluding  again,  and  only  casually,  to  that  question,  in  the  letter 
of  Julv  31st,  to  the  Toledo  meetinc;,  in  this  languao-e  :  "  Continual  war 
and  strife  are  the  forbidden  fruit  of  our  political  Eden,  and  bear  still  the 
primal  curse,  uttered  in  tones  louder  than  the  voice  of  the  mighty 
cataract  in  whose  presence  I  now  write — In  the  day  that  thou  eatest 
thereof  thou  shall  surely  die." 

Soon  after  Mr,  Vallandigham's  arrest,  a  large  and  potential  indigna- 
tion meeting  had  been  held  at  Albany,  New  York,  to  which  Governor 
Horatio  Seymour  had  addressed  a  remarkable  letter,  very  decided  and 
even  revolutionary  in  its  tone  and  language.  Strong  resolutions  were 
adopted,  and  a  committee  appointed  to  transmit  them  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
calling  upon  him,  at  the  same  time,  to  discharge  Mr.  V.  from  imprison- 
ment. The  Ohio  State  Convention  also  selected  a. committee  of  nine- 
teen, one  from  each  Congressional  district,  composed  of  some  of  the 
very  first  men  of  the  State,  to  present  to  him  the  resolution  requesting, 
not  as  a  favor  but  a  right,  the  revocation  of  the  order  of  banishment. 
These  gentl-emen  repaired  to  Washington,  and  in  person  discharged 
their  duty.  To  both  committees,  Mr.  Lincoln  returned  separate  replies 
in  writing,  justifying  the  outrage,  and  insisting  gravely  and  without  a 
"joke,"  upon  his  constitutional  right  to  commit  and  repeat  it,  Li  these 
extraordinary  letters  he  maintained  the  whole  doctrine  of  "military 
necessity,"  insisting  that  the  Constitution  in  time  of  war,  varied  "  in  its 
application,"  from  the  Constitution  in  time  of  peace,  so  that  its  limita- 
tions upon  power,  and  the  rights  secured  by  it  to  the  States  and  the 
people  ceased,  in  eases  of  rebellion  and  invasion  involving  the  public 
safety,  to  be  applicable,  and  that  "  the  man  whom,  for  the  time,  the 
people  had,  under  the  Constitution,  made  the  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army  and  navy,  was  the  man"  who  was  to  decide  when  the  public 
safety  was  involved,  and  what  in  that  case  ought  to  be  done.     He  went 


BIOGRAPHICAL   MEJIOIE.  53 

farther,  and  forgetting  his  high  position  as  President,  reported  to  dehb- 
erate  falsehood,  subterfuge,  and  prevarication,  in  order  to  justify  the 
particular  act  of  which  the  committees  complained.  Wholly  ignoring 
the  "  charge  and  specification"  upon  which  alone  Mr.  Vallandigham 
had  been  arrested  and  subjected  to  trial  by  the  military  commission, 
and  conceding  in  so  many  words,  that  if  the  arrest  were  made  for  lan- 
guage addressed  to  a  public  meeting  in  criticism  of  the  Administration, 
or  in  condemnation  of  the  military  order  of  the  General,  "  it  was  wrong," 
he  did  not  scruple  to  assert  that  Mr.  V.  was  arrested  "  because  he  was 
laboring  with  some  effect,  to  prevent  the  raising  of  troops,  to  encourage 
desertions  from  the  army^  and  to  leave  the  rebellion  without  an  adequate 
military  force  to  siippress  it."  No  such  charge  had  been  preferred 
aojainst  him,  and  it  was  without  the  slifjhtest  foundation  in  truth.  He 
repeated,  also,  the  false  statement  that  the  Judge  who  refused  the 
habeas  corpus,  was  a  member  of  the  Democratic  party  ;  and  in  his  re- 
ply to  the  Ohio  committee,  with  mingled  falsehood  and  hypocrisy,  and 
in  the  form  of  solemn  adjuration,  charged  the  man  who,  under  his  own 
edict,  executed  by  force,  was  absent  where  his  voice  in  self-defence  could 
not  be  heard,  with  complicity  with  armed  combinations  to  resist  the 
conscription  and  the  arrest  of  deserters,  and  with  numerous  acts  of 
assassination  which  he  declared  had  been  committed.  These  were 
his  words  :  "  And  now,  under  a  sense  of  responsibility  more  weighty 
and  enduring  than  any  which  is  merely  official,  I  solemnly  declare  my 
belief  that  this  hindrance  of  the  military,  including  maiming  and  mur- 
der, is  due  to  the  course  in  which  Mr.  Vallandigham  has  been  eno;as:ed, 
in  a  greater  degree  than  to  any  other  cause  ;  and  is  due  to  him  person- 
ally in  a  greater  degree  than  to  any  other  one  man.  These  things  have 
been  notorious,  known  to  all."  And  yet,  while  they  constituted  distinct 
and  overt  acts  of  crime,  easy  of  proof  if  true,  they  formed  no  part  of 
the  "  charge  and  specification"  before  Burnsi<J|'s  military  commission,  to 
prove  which  he  had  stripped  two  of  his  officers  of  their  uniform,  and 
sent  them  as  spies  to  Mt.  Vernon.  Did  ever  official  insolence  and  men 
dacity  go  further  ?  Nor  was  this  all :  with  a  full  knowledge  that  Mr.  Val- 
landigham's  speeches,  including  the  very  one  for  which  ostensibly  he  was 
arrested,  were  full  of  injunctions  to  obey  all  laws  and  to  respect  all  right- 
ful authority,  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  hesitate  to  add  that  with  all  these  acts 
of  violence  and  resistance  "  staring  him  in  the  face,  he  (Mr.  V.)  had  never 
uttered  a  word  of  rebuke  or  counsel  against  them."  Yet  after  all  these 
assertions,  he  declared  in  his  reply  to  the  Albany  committee,  and  re-* 
peated  it  in  his  letter  to  the  committee  from  Ohio,  that  Mr.  V  all  an- 
digham's  arrest  "  had  been  for  prevention^  and  not  for  punishment  /  not 
so  much  for  what  had  been  done,  as  for  what  proha^bly  would  be  done.'''' 
He  concluded  his  letter  to  the  Ohio  committee,  with  an  offer  to  revoke 


54  BIOGRAPHICAL    MEMOIR. 

'  the  order  of  banisliment,  upon  the  condition  that  the  several  members 
ot"  tlie  committee  should  bind  themselves  to  certain  propositions  in 
writing  submitted  by  him,  which  implied  nothing  less  than  support  of 
the  war,  and  indorsement  of  the  Administration  ;  but  he  added,  with 
despotic  insolence,  that  "in  regard  to  Mr.  Vallandigiiam  and  all  others, 
he  would  thereafter  as  theretofore,  do  so  much  as  the  public  safety  might 
seem  to  require."  To  the  propositions  thus  made,  the  committee  re- 
plied that  they  "  were  not  authorized  to  enter  into  any  bargains,  terms, 
contracts,  or  conditions,  with  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  pro- 
cure the  release  of  Mr.  Vallandigham."  The  entire  correspondence 
was  conducted,  on  the  part  of  both  conunittees,  with  great  dignity  and 
consummate  ability ;  and  but  for  the  stirring  military  events  at  that 
time  transpiring  in  Pennsylvania  and  the  Mississippi  Valley,  would  have 
produced  a  powerful  eflfect  upon  the  public  mind.  But  delusive  and  un- 
substantial successes  in  the  field  had  revived,  to  a  large  extent,'  the 
popular  delirium  of  war ;  and  again,  amid  arras,  as  well  reason  as  laws 
were  silent. 

In  August,  Mr.  Vallandigham,  after  a  brief  tour  down  the  lakes  and 
the  River  St.  Lawrence  to  Montreal  and  Quebec,  selected  Windsor,  in 
Canada  West,  opposite  Detroit,  Michigan,  as  his  place  of  sojourn.  It 
•was  easy  of  access  and  convenient  for  communication  with  Ohio  and 
the  Northwest ;  while  the  beautiful  Detroit  River  and  Lakes  Erie  and 
St.  Clair,  full  of  fish  and  fowl,  and  the  thick  forests  around  abounding  in 
game,  could  afford  healthful  exercise  for  the  body,  and  pleasure  to  the 
mind.  He  arrived  on  the  24th,  and  the  next  day  was  visited  by  a  large 
delegation  of  his  fellow-citizens  from  Detroit,  who  gave  him  a  cordial 
welcome.  "How  priceless  is  this  exile,"  said  the  gentleman  selected  to 
speak  on  behalf  of  the  delegation,  "  since  it  has  caused  the  usurpers  of 
power  to  pause  in  their  mad  career,  and  has  nerved  the  arm  and 
aroused  the  vigilance  of  f^emen  to  defend  the  great  corner-stone  of  free 
institutions — free  speech  and  a  free  press !"  Mr.  V.  replied  in  appropri- 
ate terms,  but,  with  rare  delicacy  and  forbearance,  declined  to  speak  in 
personal  denunciation,  in  a  foreign  country,  of  those  by  whom  he  had 
been  so  deeply  wronged.  "  Claiming  the  fullest  right  at  home,"  he 
said,  "to  criticise  and  condemn  the  men  and  acts  of  the  Administra- 
tion, and  meaning  there  and  at  the  proper  time  to  again  exercise  it  to 
the  utmost,  I  yet,  on  foreign  soil,  have  no  word  of  bitterness  to  speak. 
I  only  remember  now  that  they  represent  my  country,  and  forbear." 
,  At  this  time  the  political  canvass  in  Ohio  had  become  intensely  ex- 
cited. Nothing  equal  to  it  had  previously  been  witnessed — not  even 
in  1840.  The  meetinjrs  of  Mr.  Vallandigiiam's  ft-iends  numbered 
from  ten  thousand  to  thirty  thousand,  and  in  some  instances  even  fifty 
thousand,  in  attendance.     For  weeks,  all  except  political  agitation  and 


\ 


\ 


^  ■  BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIR.  55 

discussion,  was  laid  aside  and  forgotten.  A  body  of  public  speakers 
second  to  none  in  any  State,  and  including  several  of  the  highest 
national  reputation,  addressed  the  people  day  and  night.  Gallantly 
and  with  matchless  eloquence,  Mr.  Pugh,  as  candidate  for  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  bore  the  Democratic  standard  in  the  fight.  It  had  been  Mr. 
V.'s  earnest  desire  and  purpose  to  return  home  early  in  September  to 
aid  in  the  "^canvass ;  but  the  judgment  of  his  friends  was  decidedly 
against  it,  because  of  political  considerations,  and  he  felt  obliged  re- 
luctantly to  acquiesce.  But  from  Windsor  during  the  canvass,  he  ad- 
dressed two  earnest  letters  to  his  party  in  the  State — one  in  reply  to  the 
threat  that  civil  war  in  Ohio  should  follow  his  election,  and  the  other  in 
warning  and  denunciation  of  the  formal  suspension,  on  the  loth  of  Sep- 
tember,- of  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  every  State. 
At  this  time  many  of  his  friends  believed  that  his  triumph  was  certain. 
The  Administration  were  greatly  alarmed.  "  Don't  ask  me  to  do  any 
thing,"  said  Lincoln  to  Wendell  Phillips,  "  till  after  the  Ohio  election." 
It  was  his  design,  at  one  time,  to  attempt  to  control  the  election  by 
force,  as  in  Kentucky ;  and  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
was  the  first  sfep  in  that  direction.  But  the  firm  front  shown  by  the 
Democratic  party,  and  their  fixed  purpose  to  resist  by  arms,  if  neces- 
sary, compelled  liim  to  change  the  scheme  from  force  to  fi'aud,  and 
/through  the  joint  aid  of  secret  "Union  Leagues"  and  the  War  Depart- 
ment, his  success  was  complete.  For  although  Mr.  Vallandigham 
received  a  larger  vote  by  many  thousands,  than  was  ever  before  given 
to  a  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio,  yet  the  vote  of  the 
State  was  recorded  against  him,  by  a  majority  of  sixty-one  thousand, 
exclusive  of  thirty-nine  thousand  returned  from  the  army.  The  friends 
of  the  Administration  had  repeatedly  declared  that  they  could  better 
sustain  the  loss  of  a  battle,  or  even  of  a  whole  campaign,  in  the  field, 
than  to  lose  the  political  control  of  Ohio,  by  his  election.  But  success 
attended  them  everywhere ;  and  in  every  State,  except  New  Jersey,  the 
Democratic  pai'ty,  no  matter  upon  what  platform  or  with  what  candi- 
dates, whether  for  peace  or  the  war,  suffered  a  decisive  defeat.  Even 
in  the  army,  the  Democratic  vote  of  Ohio  was  no  less  than  that  re- 
ceived by  the  candidate  of  that  party  in  Iowa,  though  he  held  a  briga- 
dier's command  at  the  time,  in  actual  military  service  in  the  South- 
west. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  had  well  known  that  his  election  was  impossible, 
and  therefore  could  have  been  surprised  only  by  the  majority  against 
liim.  But  he  calmly  heard  the  announcement  of  his  defeat,  and  the 
same  day  published  an  Address  to  the  Democrats  of  Ohio,  saying: 
*'  You  are  beaten ;  but  a  nobler  battle  for  constitutional  liberty  and  free 
popular  government,  never  was  fought  by  any  people.     And  your  un- 


/ 


56  BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIR.  / 

conquerable  firmness  and  courage,  even  in  the  midst  of  armed  military 
force,  secured  you  those  first  of  freemen's  rights — free  speech  and  a  free 
ballot.  The  conspiracy  of  the  fifth  of  May,  fell  before  you.  i  J>e  not 
discouraged;  despair  not  of  the  Republic.  Maintain  yoiy-  rights: 
stand  firm  to  your  position ;  never  yield  up  your  principltjl!  or  your 
oro-anization."  ■ 

In  November,  a  large  delegation  of  the  students  of  the  ynivcrsity  of 
Michigan,  at  Ann  Arbor,  called  upon  him  at  Windsor.  1^  ^l^*^  sincere 
and  glowing  speech  of  the  young  gentleman  who  presented*  the  delega- 
tion, Mr.  Vallandigham  replied  in  an  address  which  by  men  of  all 
parties,  was  regarded  as  a  rare  example  of  wise  and  moral  counsel  and 
scholarly  eloquence.  He  appreciated  the  tribute  thus  paid  to  one  who 
had  no  rewards  to  bestow,  saying:  "The  applause  of  the  young  is  the 
highest  praise.  They  speak  the  language  of  the  coming  generation, 
and  ajiticipate  the  judgment  of  posterity."  But  he  preferred  to  change 
the  visit  of  ceremony  into  one  of  profit ;  and  besides  sound  advice  in 
regard  to  study  and  the  pursuits  of  after-life,  enjoined  the  highest 
morality.  "  Remember,"  said  he,  "  that  ability,  however  eminent,  and 
intellectual  discipline,  however  exact,  are  not  enough.  .Without  pure 
morals,  correct  habits,  and  fixed  integrity,  you  cannot  endure  the  trial. 
Be  virtuous,  .  Be  pious.  I  use  the  word  in  no  narrow,  sectarian,  or 
theological  sense :  but  in  that  which  Virgil  means  when  he  calls  ^neas, 
*2>«<s' — a,  piety  which  belongs  to  no  one  sect,  nor  clime,  nor  time,  nor 
country,  but  which  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  renders  to  God,  and  self, 
and  man,  whatever  is  due,  and  does  in  the  very  spirit  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount."  But  that  which  most  nearly  disclosed  one  of  the  chief 
traits  of  his*  own  character,  was  the  injunction:  "Have 'faith — absolute, 
unquestioning,  immovable — that  faith  which,  speaking  to  itself  in  the 
silence  and  calm  of  the  heart's  own  beating,  says,  '  If  not  to-day,  or  this 
time,  then  to-morrow,  or  next,  or  some  other  day,  at  some  other  time, 
in  some  other  way,  all  will  be  well.'  Without  this,  no  one  ever  achieved 
greatness."  Such  were  the  sentiments,  amid  persecution,  in  exile,  and 
after  defeat,  of  the  man  whom  his  competitor  for  gubernatorial  honors 
graciously  consigned,  after  the  election,  to  oblivion. 

At  Niagara  Falls  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  daily  overwhelmed  with 
visitors  from  every  State,  and  the  throng  was  but  little  diminished  at 
Windsor,  Spies,  too,  beset  him  at  every  step  ;  but  to  no  purpose. 
The  Administration  seemed  to  fear  him  somewhat  as  Chateaubriand 
said  the  gray  coat  and  cocked  hat  of  the  First  Napoleon  was  feared  by 
the  Legitimists  of  Europe.  The  United  States  gun-boat  Michigan,  with 
loaded  cannon  and  steam  up,  lay  opposite  his  bed-room  window  for 
four  weeks,  lest  he  should,  perchance,  land  in  Detroit,  and,  possibly, 
capture  and  destroy  the  city ;  while  a  sc^re  of  detectives,  provided  with 


f 


BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIE.  57 

Ms  photograph,  kept  watch  in  every  public  place.     At  all  this  he  could 
smile  in  calm  contempt. 

Since  the  election,  Mr.  Vallandigham  has  lived  in  great  quietude 
and  seclusion  in  Windsor.  Like  the  Master  of  Eavenswood,  he  has 
chosen  for  his  motto,  "  I  bide  my  time."  In  a  letter  to  a  friend,  writ- 
ten in  November,  he  thus  describes  his  daily  way  of  life :  "  I  am  here 
as  calm,  as  determined,  as  steadfast,  and  as  hopeful  as  ever,  and  as  busy 
too.  I  am  reviewing  history  and  political  philosophy  ;  dipping  a  little 
into  the  ancient  classics  again ;  making  notes  and  memoranda  of  the 
times ;  writing  letters ;  and  closely,  day  by  day,  watching  the  course  of 
events  at  home  and  abroad ;  ready  for  any  fortune,  and,  I  hope,  equal 
to  it.  I  see  many  visitors  also,  and  spend  not  an  idle  moment — for  my 
recreations,  riding,  walking,  fishing,  hunting,  &c.,  I  do  not  count  idle- 
ness." 

In  February,  1864,  Mr.  Pugh  applied  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  al^Washington,  for  a  writ  of  certiorari  to  review  and 
annul  the  proceedings  and  sentence  of  the  military  commission  before 
which  Mr.  V.  had  been  tried.  But  that  tribunal,  having  under  the 
Constitution  no  appellate  jurisdiction  of  any  kind,  except  in  cases  first 
ascertained  by  law,  and  Congress  not  having  given  such  jurisdiction  in 
any  proceeding  before  courts-martial  or  military  commissions,  was 
obliged,  and  upon  this  ground  expressly  and  alone,  to  deny  the  writ. 
No  American  legislator  had  ever  before  imagined  that  any  mere  citi- 
zen would,  under  any  circumstances,  be  subjected  to  trial  by  military 
law,  in  a  State  where  judicial  process  and  courts  had  never  been  inter- 
rupted ;  and,  therefore,  no  mode  of  redress  had  ever  been  provided. 

In  1846,  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  married  to  Miss  Louisa  A.  McMahon, 
a  sister  of  the  Hon.  John  V.  L.  McMahon,  of  Baltimore,  Maryland, 
and  daughter  of  William  McMahon,  one  of  the  purest  and  best  of  men, 
who  lived  and  died  a  pious  and  honored  citizen  of  Cumberland  in  the 
same  State.  He  has  but  one  child  living,  a  bright,  noble  boy  of  ten  years 
of  asjfe.  lie  has  onlv  two  brothers — one  the  Rev.  James  L.  Vallandisrham, 
of  Nevvai-k,  Delaware  ;  and  the  other,  Dr.  George  S.  Vallandigham,  resi- 
ding iu  New  Lisbon,  Ohio.  A  younger  brother  died  many  years  ago.  His 
own  personal  appearance  is  thus  described  by  an  Englishman  writing 
from  Niagara  Falls  :  "  A  more  thorough  gentleman  in  manner,  appear- 
ance, and  language,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  find;  certainly  it  would  be 
difiicult  to  get  many  such  among  those  who  assail  him  so  bitterly.  He 
is  a  man  of  medium  height  and  build,  fresh  in  complexion — that  fresh- 
ness which  betokens  health — and  e,xceeding!y  intelligent-looking,  with- 
out that  massiveness  of  brain  which  frequently,  though  not  always, 
accompanies  great  intellectual  power.  Exceedingly  amiable  in  disposi- 
tion, he  is  respected  by  all  who  know  him.     Refined  in  manner  and 


58  LIOGRAPIIICAL   MEMOIR. 

language,  be  impresses  you  on  the  instant  as  few  American  politicians 
impress  you.  Were  I  to  describe  him  in  a  word,  not  knowing  his 
native  country,  I  would  say  he  was  an  English  gentleman  of  good  educa- 
tion and  training,  of  great  probity,  and  much  more  than  an  average 
share  of  ability  and  political  acquirements.  A  schemer,  even  in  politics, 
I  could  not  conceive  him  to  be."  But,  perhaps,  the  most  concise  and 
accurate  personal  description  of  him,  is  the  following,  from  a  Southern 
paper,  written  in  May,  1863:  "Whilst  in  Shelbyville,  I  seized  the 
opportunity  of  seeing  Mr.  VAtLANOioHAM.  Without  impertinently 
intruding  upon  that  distinguished  man,  I  heard  him  converse  for  an 
hour  or  so,  upon  one  topic  and  another.  His  manner  has  nothing 
studied  or  affected ;  he  speaks  without  effort  or  hesitation,  and  his  face 
bears  a  permanent  expression  of  good  humor  and  friendship.  His  eyes 
are  blue,  full,  and  look  right  into  yours ;  and  whilst  they  beam  with 
vivacity  and  intelligence,  there  is  an  earnest  honesty  in  them  which  has 
won  your  regard  and  admiration  before  you  know  it.^  His  complexion 
is  floi'id,  his  nose  rather  hooked  (Roman),  chin  and  Tips  well  chiselled 
and  firm,  teeth  strong  and  white,  hair  and  whiskers  dark  chestnut  and 
close  trimmed,  height  about  five  feet  ten.  His  frame  is  robust,  compact, 
and  gi-aceful.  Altogether  he  is  certainly  a  man  of  extraordinary  mental 
and  physical  vigor ;  of  great  natural  abilities  improved  by  cultivation, 
combining  impulse  with  deliberation,  and  enthusiasm  with  remorseless 
determination  of  purpose." 

As  a  speaker,  Mr.  Vallandigham  is  thus  described  by  a  correspond- 
ent of  the  Boston  Herald,  an  Administration  paper:  '•  Hi>  method  of 
speaking  is  very  attractive.  Added  to  fine  appearance  of  person,  he  has 
a  good  voice  and  gesture,  and  always  speaks  without  notes.  I  might 
add,  also,  that  his  great  coolness  amid  the  most  heated  discussions,  is 
one  of  his  peculiarities,  and  gives  him  decided  advantages  over  more 
impassioned  antagonists."  Another  hostile  correspondent,  referring  to 
the  delivery  of  a  particular  passage  in  one  of  his  speeches,  says :  '*  With 
flashing  eye  and  livid  features,  and  extended  hand  trembling  with  the 
passion  of  his  utterance,  he  hurls  the  climax  of  his  threatening  argument 
upon  the  Republican  side  of  the  House." 


Since  the  foregoing  was  written,  Mr.  Vallandigham  has  returned 
to  his  home  in  Dayton,  Ohio.  He  came  of  his  own  act  and  pleasure, 
appearing,  unknown  to  all,  before  the  Democratic  District  Convention 
at  Hamilton,  Ohio,  on  the  15th  of  June.  He  was  received  with  the 
most  extraordinary  demonstrations  of  enthusiasm  andjoy,  and  havingfirst 
been  appointed  a  delegate  to  the  Democratic  Presidential  Convention, 
at  Chicago,  addressed  the  people ;  soon  after  which  he  took  the  traiu 


BIOGEAPHICAL    MEMOIE.  59 

for  Dayton,  wliere  he  arrived  late  ia  the  afternoon,  and  drove  im- 
mediately to  his  own  home,  which  he  had  not  seen  for  thirteen  months. 
In  the  evening  hundreds  called,  and  day  and  night  ever  since,  his 
house  has  been  thronged  with  cordial  and  determined  friends.  The 
evening  after  his  return  he  was  serenaded,  and  addressed  from  his  own 
portico  an  assemblage  of  some  two  thousand  persons,  called  together 
upon  a  few  hours'  notice.  So  far  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  rearrest 
or  in  any  way  to  interfere  with  him. 
July,  1864. 


From  Mr.  Vallaitdigham's  private  note-hook  we  are  permittted  to 
copy  the  following,  dated  in  August,  1843.  How  closely  he  has 
adhered  to  these  resolutions  of  his  early  youth,  his  subsequent  public 
and  private  life  abundantly  attest.  He  pursued  them  faithfully  till,  just 
twenty  years  later,  they  led  him  into  exile,  and  yet  he  clings  to  them 
stUt; 

"FIXED  RULES 

Of  political  conduct  to  guide  me  as  a  statesman  ;  in  no  instance  and 
under  no  circumstances  whatever  to  be  relaxed  or  violated ;  and  this 
by  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God  : 

"  1.  Always  to  pursue  what  is  honest,  right,  and  just,  though  adverse  to 
the  apparent  and  present  interests  of  the  country  ;  well  assured  that  what 
is  not  right,  cannot,  in  the  long  run,  be  expedient, 

"  2.  Always  to  prefer  mt  country,  and  the  whole  country,  before  any 
and  all  considerations  of  mere  party. 

"  3.  In  all  things  coolly  to  ascertain,  and,  with  stern  independence,  to 
pursue  the  dictates  of  my  judgment  and  my  conscience,  regardless  of 
the  consequences  to  party  or  self 

"  4.  As.  far  as  consistent  with  the  national  honor  and  safety,  and  with 
justice  to  the  country,  to  seek  peace  with  all  nations  and  to  pursue  it ; 
persuaded  that  a  pacific  policy  is  the  true  wisdom  of  a  State,  and  war 
its  folly;  yet  as  resolved  to  demand  nothing  but  what  is  right,  so  to 
submit  to  nothing  that  is  wroncr. 

"  5.  Sedulously,  at  all  times  and  in  every  place,  to  calm  and  to  harmo- 
nize the  conflicting  interests  and  sectional  jealousies  of  the  different 
divisions  of  the  Republic,  and  especially  of  the  North  and  South ;  and 
with  steady  perseverance,  under* all  circumstances,  to  uphold  and  cement 
the  Union  ,of  the  States  as  "  the  palladium  of  our  political  safety  and 
prosperity" — except  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  just  constitutional  liberties 
and  inalienable  rights  of  oppressed  minorities. 


60  BIOGKAPmCAL  MEMOIE. 

"  6.  "Without  infringing  the  rights  of  conscience,  always  to  countenance 
and  support  religion,  morality,  and  education,  as  essential  to  the  well- 
beins:  of  a  free  Government;  and  in  all  things  to  acknowledG;e  the 
superintending  Providence  of  an  All- Wise,  Most  Just,  and  Beneficent 
God,  in  the  aftairs  of  the  Republic." 


SPEECHES. 


"  I  appealed  to  Time;  and  right  nobly  hath  the  Avenger  answerei  me." 

Speech  ofJauuatij  14,  1863. 


SPEECHES,   ETC. 


THE  CONSTITUTIOiSrAL    POWER   OF   THE   LEGISLATURE    TO   ALTER 

LEGISLATIVE  DISTRICTS* 

The  minority  of  the  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elections,  to 
which  was  referred  the  memorial  of  Daniel  Chandler,  contesting  the 
right  of  Jordan  Betts,  the  sitting  member  from  the  county  of  Morgan, 
to  the  seat  which  he  at  present  holds  in  this  Ho\ise,  respectfully  report : 
That  they  have  bestowed  upon  the  case,  submitted  to  them,  all  that  at- 
tention which  its  importance  demanded.  They  regret  the  necessity 
which  compels  them  to  difter  wholly  with  the  majority  of  the  com- 
mittee. But  since  a  difterence — a  wide,  though  an  honest  difference — 
separates  them,  in  their  conclusions,  from  that  majority,  it  remains  only 
for  them  to  present,  for  the  consideratiort  of  the  House,  the  reasonings 
by  which  they  have  been  governed,  in  their  judgment  upon  the  papers 
referred  to  the  committee. 

It  has  been  a  matter,  also,  of  surprise  and  regret,  that,  in  a  case  par- 
taking so  much  of  the  nature  of  a  judicial  proceeding,  efforts  should 
have  been  made,  out  of  doors,  to  prejudge  the  rights  of  the  parties  to 
this  contested  election  :  still  more,  that  such  efforts  should  have  been 
countenanced  within  the  House.  This,  in  the  opinion  of  the  under- 
siofned,  is  not  a  matter  in  which  the  deference  or  the  allegiance  which 
every  man  ought,  and  can  honorably  owe  to* party  habitudes,  or  to  the 
wishes  and  opinions  of  his  fellows  of  a  kindred  political  faith,  -ought  to 
be  allowed  the  smallest  influence.  Upon  the  facts,  the  law,  and  the 
Constitution,  it  behooves  every  member  to  decide  in  his  own  individual 
judgment,  since  the  Constitution  of  the  State,  by  the  eighth  section 
of  the  first  article,  has  made  him  a  "judge"  of  the  qualifications  and 
the  election  of  his  fellow-members. 

*  Report  submitted  by  Mr.  Yallaxdigham,  from  the  minority  of  the  Election 
Committee,  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives,  December  18,  1845,  in  the  Mor- 
gan county  contested  election,  Daniel  Chandler  against  Jordan  Betts. 


64  vallandiqham's  speeches. 

The  papers  and  other  documents  referred  to,  or  in  possession  of  the 
committee,  present  the  following  state  of  facts  : 

An  act  of  the  General  Assembly,  passed  December  29,  1817,  erected 
certain  portions  of  the  counties  of  Washington,  Guernsey,  and  Mus- 
•kingum,  into  a  new  county,  called  Dy  the  name  of  Morgan,  comprising 
within  its  territory,  as  prescribed  in  the  act,  the  townships  of  Bloom, 
Bristol,  Brookfield,  Centre,  Deerfield,  Jackson,  Malta,  Manchester,  Mor- 
gan, Meigsville,  Noble,  Olive,  Penn,  ifnion,  York,  and  "Windsor,  together 
with  two  other  townships,  subsequently  attached  to  an  adjoining  county. 

In  the  year  1843,  in  pursuance  of  section  2,  article  1,  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  Ohio,  an  enumeration  was  made  of  all  the  wliite  male  inhabi- 
tants above  twenty-one  years  of  age,  residing  within  the  State. 

On  the  12th  day  of  March,  1844,  the  Legislature  passed  "  an  act  to  fix 
and  apportion  the  representation  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State 
of  Ohio,"  the  first  clause  of  which  act  is  in  the  words  following :  "  Be 
it  enacted,  <tc.,  that  the  General  Assembly  of  this  State  shall  be  com- 
posed of  thirty-six  Senators,  and  seventy-two  Representatives,  to  be  ap- 
portioned as  follows":  The  19th  clause,  section  1st,  of  that  act,  fixes 
and  apportions  "  to  tlje  counties  of  Perry,  Morgan,  and  "Washington, 
one  Senator,  to  be  elected  in  the  years  1845  and  1847  ;  to  each  of  said 
counties  one  Representative,  and  an  additional  Representative  to  the 
county  of  Morgan,  in  the  year  1847."  Morgan  county,  which,  by  this 
act,  was  thus  organized  into  an  electoral  district,  and  declared  entitled 
to  one  Representative  in  the  years  1844,  '45,  and  '46,  and  to  an  addi- 
tional one  in  the  year  1847,  was  composed,  at  the  time  said  act 
was  passed,  of  the  territory  including  the  townships  before  named. 
No  other  territory,  and  no  white  male  inhabitants  above  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  other  than  sudi  as  were  living  at  that  time,  constituted  the 
territory,  and  the  white  male  inhabitants,  above  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
of  the  county  called  Morgan,  at  the  date  of  the  act  before  recited. 

By  a  local  law,  passed  March  11th,  1845,  the  townships  of  Homer 
and  Marion,  being  parts  of  the  territory  within  the  county  of  Athens, 
together  with  seven  sections  of  the  township  of  Roxbury,  in  Washing- 
ton county,  were  attachecf  to  the  county  of  Morgan.  Four  and  a  half 
of  these  sections  were  subsequently  incorporated,  by  the  commissioners 
of  Morgan  county,  with  Windsor  township,  in  that  county,  and  the  re- 
maining two  sections  and  a  half,  with  the  township  of  Marion.  The  act 
made  no  provision  requiring  the  votes  of  the  electors  within  the  town- 
ships and  sections  annexed  by  it,  to  be  polled  or  counted  for  Repre- 
sentative in  Morgan  county.  It  is  silent,  altogether,  upon  that 
subject. 

On  the  14th  of  October,  1845,  in  pursuance  of  the  Constitution,  and 
of  the  laws  of  the  State,  an  electioti  was  hold   in   Morgan,  as  in  other 


MORGAN    COtnS'TY    C02f TESTED    ELECTION^.  65 


counties,  for  certain  officers,  and  among  these,  for  Representative  in  the 
General  Assembly.  Two  candidates  for  the  office  were  presented  to 
the  people — Jordan  Betts  and  Daniel  Chandler,  Of  the  votes  cast  in 
the  townships  of  Morgan  county,  before  enumerated,  together  with  the 
townships  and  sections  attached  by  the  act  of  11th  March,  1845,  Mr. 
Chandler  received  two  thousand  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven,  Mr. 
Betts  two  thousand  one  hundred  and  fourteen,  exhibiting  a  majority  of 
seventy-three  votes  for  Mr.  Chandler.  But  of  the  votes  polled  in  the 
townships,  comprising  that  county,  at  the  period  of  the  fixing  and  ap- 
portionment of  the  representation,  by  the  act  of  March  12th,  1844, 
two  thousand  and  fourteen  were  cast  for  Betts,  and  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  for  Chandler,  showing  a  majority  for  Mr.  Betts, 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty-six  votes. 

Assuming  that  the  votes  polled  in  the  townships  of  Homer  and 
Marion  could  not,  in  conformity  with  the  Constitution,  and  with  law, 
be  deemed  votes  legally  cast  for  Representative,  in  the  county  of  Mor- 
gan as  an  electoral  district,  the  clerk  of  the  Common  Pleas,  and  the 
justices  whom,  in  pursuance  of  the  statute,  he  had  called  to  his  assist- 
ance, refused  to  count  the  votes  so  polled ;  and  accordingly,  Mr.  Betts, 
having  a  majority  of  all  other  votes,  received  from  the  clerk  a  certificate 
of  election  to  the  seat  which  he  now  holds  in  the  House.  Mr.  Chandler 
contests  the  right  of  Mr.  Betts  to  that  seat,  and  presents  his  memorial, 
which  has  been  read  by  the  clerk. 

Upon  this  statement  of  facts,  two  questions  are  presented  for  the 
judgment  of  the  House — 

1.  Was  it  the  intent  of  the  act  of  11th  March,  1845,  or  did  it  so 
operate,  as  to  make  the  townships  and  sections  enumerated  in  it,  so  far 
a  part  of  the  county  of  Morgan,  as  to  entitle  the  white  male  inhabitants 
above  the  age  of  twenty-one,  residing  in  those  townships  and  sections, 
to  vote /or  Representative  in  that  county. 

2.  If  such  were  the  intent  or  the  operation  of  the  act,  is  it,  so  far,  an 
act  which  the  Legislature  has  constitutional  power  to  pass  ? 

Preliminary  to  the  consideration  of  these  questions,  and  for  the  pur- 
pose of  disembarrassing  the  subject  of  all  matters  either  not  contro- 
verted, or  not  necessarily  connected  with  the  issue  joined  upon  the 
case,  and  of  ascertaining  the  precise  points  of  controversy,  the  under- 
signed here  state  what  is  or  might  be  safely,  and  with  truth,  admitted. 

It  is  admitted,  that  if  the  votes  polled  for  Representative  in  the 
townships  of  Homer  and  Marion,  be  counted  as  votes  legally  cast  in 
the  county  of  Morgan,  Mr.  Chandler  is  entitled  to  the  seat  which  he 
claims  in  his  memorial ;  otherwise,  Mr.  Betts  is  entitled  to  that  seat. 

It  is  admitted  that  the  Legislature  may  constitutionally  establish  new 
counties,  or  alter  the  boundaries  of  old  ones,  incorporating  parts  of  the 
5 


K 


66  vallandigham's  speeches. 

territory  of  one  county  into  the  territory  of  another.     Witli  all  thii,  wc 
have  nothing  do. 

It  might  be  admitted  that  the  votes  polled  in  the  townships  and 
sections  annexed  by  the  act  of  '45,  for  county  officers,  ought  to  have 
been,  and  were;  rijrlitfullv  received  and  counted  as  votes  given  in  Mor- 
gan  county : — it  might  equally  be  admitted  that  they  were  illegally  and 
improperly  so  received  and  counted ;  and  yet,  Mr.  Betts  be  entitled  to 
his  seat. 

It  might  be  admitted  that  the  votes  of  the  sections  above  referred  to, 
were  improperly  counted  among  the  votes  polled  in  Morgan  county 
for  Jiep?-esentative.  Four  and  a  half  of  these  sections  were  incorporated, 
as  before  stated,  with  Windsor  township,  in  that  county.  It  was,  and 
is,  impossible  to  distinguish  between  the  votes  legally  and  those  ille- 
gally so  polled  in  that  township.  But  the  dilemma  is  readily  solved. 
In  Windsor  township,  Mr.  Betts  received  116  votes;  Mr.  Chandler, 
125.  Now  let  all  the  votes  cast  in  that  township  for  Mr.  Betts  be 
rejected,  and  all  the  votes  received  in  it  by  Mr.  Chandler  be  counted  ; 
still,  Mr.  Betts  has  a  clear  majority  of  forty  votes ;  and  therefore,  so  far, 
is  entitled  to  his  seat. 

It  might  be  admitted  that  the  act  of  March,  '45,  was  passed  at  the 
instance  of  the  people,  without  distinction  of  party,  residing  in  the  terri- 
tory annexed  by  it  to  Morgan  county — that  it  was  passed  for  their  con- 
venience— that  said  territory  and  its  inhabitants  were  received  and 
treated  as  part  of  that  county,  for  county  purposes — that  the  property 
within  that  territory  was  placed  for  taxation  upon  the  duplicate  of  the 
county  of  ISIorgan — all  this  may  be  admitted,  and  still,  Mr.  Betts  be  en- 
titled to  his  seat. 

It  might  be  admitted  that  the  former  distribution  of  Representatives 
was  unjust  and  unequal,  so  far  as  to  the  counties  named  in  the  act  of 
1845  ; — that  the  act  only  so  altered  that  distribution,  as  to  remove  the 
inequality ;  and  still,  Mr.  Betts  be  entitled  to  his  seat. 

It  might  be  admitted  that  the  electors  of  township  number  four, 
which,  by  an  act  passed  January  29,  1827,  was  incorporated  with  the 
county  of  Lorain,  voted  wath  that  county  for  its  Representative  in  the 
General  Assembly,  though  of  that  fact  there  was  no  evidence  presented 
to  the  Committee.  But  since  no  question  was  raised  in  the  case,  it 
cannot  be  regarded  as  a  precedent  of  any  great  value.  So  that,  still. 
Mr.  Betts  may  be  entitled  to  his  seat. 

And  finallv,  as  a  matter  to  which  the  undersigned  entreat  the  ver}' 
earnest  and  candid  consideration  of  the  House — it  might  even  be  con- 
ceded that  the  clerk  of  the  Common  Pleas  of  Morgan  county  had 
violated  the  most  solemn  responsibilities  of  his  office — trifled  with  the 
oblip-ation  of  his  oath — trampled  upon  the  Constitution,  and  set  at  defi- 


MORGJ.]Sr    COUNTY    COISTTESTED    ELECTION".  67 

ance  the  laws,  the  whole  statute-book,  violating  flagrantly  every  page 
of  it,  from  the  first  «yllable  to  the  last — nay,  he  might  even  have  done 
what  he  did  do,  for  a  pecuniary  recompense — -for  money,  thus  superad- 
ding the  crime  of  bribery  to  the  accumulated  guilt  of  a  violation  of 
all  other  moral,  constitutional,  and  legal  responsibilities; — and  yet, 
under  the  laws  and  the  Constitution,  Mr.  Betts  be  entitled  to  his  seat. 
With  the  action  of  the  justices  and  the  clerk,  the  House  has  just 
nothing  to  do.  For  had  Mr.  Chandler  received  the  certificate  of  elec- 
tion, beyond  a  doubt,  Mr.  Betts  might  have  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the 
House  as  contestor.  And  in  such  event,  it  is  plain  as  the  sun  at  broad 
noon,  that  the  question  would  have  been  precisely  what  it  now  is.  The 
question  is  not,  Avho  ought  to  have  had  the  certificate  from  the  clerk, 
but,  who  is  now  entitled  by  the  law  and  the  Constitution,  to  a  seat  as 
the  Representative  from  the  county  of  Morgan  ?  In  respect  to  the  action 
of  the  justices  and  the  clerk,  the  minority  have  this  only  now  to  say  : — 
that  if  the  townships  of  Homer  and  Marion  constituted  no  part,  under 
the  Constitution  or  the  law,  of  the  county  of  Morgan,  for  the  purposes 
of  the  election  of  a  Representative  for  ';  . .  county,  the  clerk  and  the 
justices  whom  he  called  to  his  assistance,  had  no  more  right,  and  were 
under  no  greater  obligation  to  receive  the  poll-books  from  those  town 
ships,  than  from  any  other  township  in  any  other  county  in  the  State ; 
and  were  bound  to  refuse  them  so  far  as  to  the  votes  cast  for  Repre- 
sentative. 

The  undersigned  ask  now  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  first 
point  before  submitted.  Nothing  can  be  clearer,  than  that  there  is 
no  express  intent  declared  in  the  act  of  March  11,  1845,  to  the  effect 
that  the  electors  of  the  territory  annexed  to  the  county  of  Morgan, 
should  vote  for  Representative,  with  that  county.  Neither  is  there  in 
any  part  of  it,  any  provision  whatsoever,  from  which  such  intent  can 
rationally  and  fairly  be  inferred.  All  the  known  and  settled  rules  for 
ascertaining  the  intent  of  statutes,  fail  wholly,  when  applied  to  that  act, 
to  establish  an  intent  such  as  above  supposed.  The  words  do  not  de- 
clare it;  it  cannot  be  presumed  from'  the  context,  nor  from  the  subject 
matter,  nor  the  reason  or  spirit,  nor  yet  even  from  the  title  of  the  act. 

But,  though  such  be  not  the  intent  of  the  law,  does  it  so  02}erate  as 
to  entitle  the  electors  of  the  several  townships  and  sections  attached  by 
it  to  the  county  of  Morgan,  to  vote  for  a  Representative  from  that 
county?  The  apportionment  act  of  March  12,  1844,  19th  clause,  sec- 
tion 1st,  organized  the  counties  of  Athens  and  Meigs  into  an  electoral 
district,  and  assigned  to  them  one  Representative  in  the  General  Assem- 
bly. At  the  date  of  that  act,  the  townships  of  Homer  and  Marion  were 
parts  of  that  electoral  district,  and  the  inhabitants  of  those  townships 
were,  by  that  law,  and  the  general  election  laws  of  the  State,  entitled  to 


68  vallandigham's  speeches. 

vote,  in  common  with  the  other  white  male  inhabitants  of  the  district,  for 
one  Representative  _^/br  the  counties  of  Athens  and  Mcir/s.  Now,  it  will 
hardly  he  pretended  that  the  law  of  March  11,  1845,  undertakes' 
exprcsshj,  to  repeal,  in  whole  or  part,  the  act  of  March  12,  1844.  Such 
pretence  would  be  in  broad  contradiction  of  the  evidence  of  every 
man's  senses.  Does  it,  then,  so  operate  as  to  repeal  the  latter,  by  way 
of  implication  ?  This  it  might  effect  in  two  ways — either  by  requiring, 
expressly,  something  contradictory  to  the  provisions  of  the  former  law, 
or  by  being,  in  its  nature,  repugnant  to,  and  irreconcilable  with,  that 
law.  But,  as  already  has  been  shown,  the  act  of  '45  contains  no  clause 
in  any  part  of  it,  pointing  out  in  what  county  or  electoral  district  the 
electors  of  the  territory  annexed  shall  vote.  Total  silence,  in  every 
respect,  on  a  subject  so  important  as  the  right  of  suffrage,  cannot,  by 
any  torture  of  interpretation,  be  construed  into  a  contradiction,  either 
express  or  implied,  of  the  requirements  of  former  laws  upon  tljut  sub- 
ject; laws,  also,  which  were  known  to  be  in  force  at  the  time.  And 
further :  the  journals  of  the  last  session  show  that,  while  the  law  of 
March  11th  was  pending  before  the  Legislature,  amendments  were  pro- 
posed, pointing  out  the  effect  which  the  law  should  have  upon  the  elec- 
toral rights  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  townships  and  sections  aiujexed  to 
Morgan  county;  but  these  amendments  were  rejected  by  decisive 
majorities.  So  that  not  even  was  this  silence  accidental.  It  may  also 
not  be  amiss,  here  to  observe,  that  the  language  of  the  act  of  last  ses- 
sion differs,  very  widely,  from  the  language  of  the  act  of  1827,  before 
referred  to  in  this  report. 

But  neither  is  there  any  thing  in  the  nature  of  the  act  of  1845  repug- 
nant to  the  apportionment  law  of  1844.  The  former  act  does  not  affect 
to  deal  at  all  with  the  electoral  rights  of  the  inliabitants  in  the  territory 
annexed  by  it ;  it  is  a  local  act,  passed  for  local  purposes,  by  local  in- 
fluences, perhaps,  and  for  the  convenience  of  those  inhabitants,  in  ordi- 
nary county  and  township  affairs.  The  latter  deals  wholly  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  State  as  electors,  and  it  deals  with  them  in  no  other 
capacity.  It  treats  of  the  distribution  of  political  power,  and  it  does 
not  pretend  to  treat  of  any  thing  else.  And  further,  the  electors  of  the 
townships  and  sections  attached  to  Morgan  county,  had  hitherto  voted 
for  Representative  with  the  electors  of  the  county  of  Athens.  Nothing 
in  the  act  of  1845,  proliibited  them  from  continuing  so  to  vote,  or  re- 
quired them  to  vote  elsewhere.  They  might,  in  all  other  respects,  have 
become  citizens  of  the  county  of  Morgan.  They  might  have  voted  even 
for  county  officers  with  that  county,  and  for  Representative,  have  voted 
•with  Athens.  Nothing  could  have  been  easier.  The  22d  section  of 
the  general  election  law  of  1831,  points  out  the  mode  of  so  voting  in 
the  case  of  new  counties,  organized  betweea  the  regular  periods  of  ap- 


3I0RGAN   COUNTY   CONTESTED    ELECTION.  69 

portionment.  The  like  has  been  done  repeatedly.  And  the  law  made 
no  change  in  their  township  officers,  or  in  the  time,  manner,  or  place 
of  holding  elections.  Here  was  no  burden ;  no  hardship ;  no  dis- 
franchisement. 

To  sum  up  all  in  a  few  words :  the  act  of  the  last  session  declares  no 
express  intent  to  alter,  in  any  manner,  the  apportionment  or  election 
laws  in  force  at  that  time,  or  to  change,  lessen,  or  extend  the  bound- 
aries of  electoral  districts,  as  fixed  by  those  laws.'  Neither  is  there  any 
thing  in  its  requirements  contradictory  to  those  laws.  And,  finally, 
nothing  in  the  nature  or  character  of  that  act,  can  be  pointed  out,  re- 
pugnant to  the  rights  conferred,  or  the  obligations  imposed,  by  the  laws 
first  named. 

So  conclusive  does  this  view  of  the  case  seem  to  the  minority,  that 
they  might  well  here  rest,  and  confidently  demand  the  judgment  of  the 
House  in  favor  of  the  right  of  Mr.  Betts.  But  considerations,  graver 
^ar,  and,  if  possible,  still  more  satisfactory,  remain  yet  to  be  presented. 

By  the  second  section,  article  1st,  of  the  Constitution  of  Ohio,  it  is 
ordained  that  "  within  one  year  after  the  first  meeting  of  the  General 
Assembly,  and  within  every  subsequent  term  of  four  years,  an  enumera- 
tion of  all  the  white  male  inhabitants,  above  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
shall  be  made  in  such  manner  as  shall  be  directed  by  law.  The  num- 
ber of  Representatives  shall,  at  the  several  periods  of  making  sucli 
enumeration,  be  fixed  by  the  Legislature,  and  apportioned  among  the 
several  counties,  according  to  the  number  of  white  male  inhabitants 
above  twenty-one  years  of  age  in  each,  and  shall  never  be  less  than 
twenty-four,  nor  greater  than  thirty-six,  until  the  number  of  white  male 
inhabitants  above  twenty-one  years  of  age,  shall  be  twenty-two  thou 
sand ;  and  after  that  event,  at  such  ratio,  that  the  whole  number  of 
Representatives  shall  never  be  less  than  thirty-six,  nor  exceed  seventy- 
two."  Upon  this  part  of  the  Constitution,  the  minority,  with  all  be- 
coming deference  to  the  honest  opinions  of  others,  claim  with  very 
great  confidence,  and  in  perfect  assurance  of  being  sustained  in  the  con- 
struction they  set  up,  that  it  is  not  within  the  constitutional  power  of  a 
subsequent  Legislature  to  alter  or  repeal  a  law  fixing  and  apportioning 
representation  in  the  General  Assembly,  passed,  in  good  faith,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  section  above  quoted,  except  at  the  several  periods  of 
making  the  enumeration  in  the  section  provided  for.  An  examination  of 
the  section,  applying  to  it  the  known  and  common-sense  rules  of  inter- 
pretation, will  enable  every  man  to  decide,  in  his  own  judgment,  upon  its 
true  meaning.  And,  first,  it  provides  for  "  an  enumeration  of  all  the 
white  male  inhabitants  (of  the  State)  above  twenty-one  years  of  age," 
within  one  year  after  the  first  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly.  That 
enumeration  was  made  in  1803,  the  Assembly  having  first  met  in  the 


70  VALLANDIG ham's    SPEECHES. 

spring  of  that  year.  The  same  section  further  provides,  that  such  enu* 
meration  shall  be  made  "  within  every  subsequent  term  of  four  years." 
It  is  then  further  provided,  that  "  the  number  of  Representatives  shall 
be  fixed  and  apportioned  among  the  several  counties"  of  the  State.  But 
when  so  fixed  and  apportioned  ?  "  At  the  several  periods  of  making  such 
enumeration  ;''  that  is,  once  in  every  term  of  four  years.  And  how 
fixed  and  apportioned  among  the  several  counties?  "According  to  the 
number  of  white  male  inhabitants  above  twenty-one  years  of  age  in 
each."  How  is  that  number  to  be  ascertained  ?  By  an  enumeration. 
When  is  that  enumeration  to  be  made?  Once  in  every  term  of  four 
years.  Is  it  the  number  of  inhabitants  throughout  the  whole  State 
which  is  to  determine  the  apportionment  ?  No ;  but  the  number  in 
each  county.  Thus  it  will  be  perceived  that  the  Legislature  has  the 
power  expressly  given,  to  take  once  in  four  years,  at  regular  periods,  the 
census  of  certain  iidiabitants  of  the  State  ;  and  according  to  that  census, 
to  fix  and  apportion  the  Representatives  among  the  several  counties,  ac-' 
cording  to  the  number  of  such  iidiabitants  in  each.  But  it  may  be 
argued  that  the  Legislature  is  not  prohibited  from  taking  an  enumera- 
tion and  apportioning  Representatives  at  periods  other  than  those  fixed ; 
and  that,  if  so,  it  may  alter  or  amend,  at  any  time,  the  periodical  ap- 
portionment acts.  True,  it  is  not  prohibited  by  express  words — but  is 
such  the  intent  of  the  Constitution  ?  Is  it  the  theory  of  that  instru- 
ment? Far  from  it.  The  bill  of  rights,  section  28,  in  words  pointed 
and  emphatic,  ordains,  that  "  to  guard  against  the  transgression  of  the 
high  powers  which  we  have  delegated,  we  declare  that  all  powers  not 
hereby  delegated,  remain  with  the  people."  Such  powers  only,  there- 
fore, as  are,  by  the  Constitution,  delegated  to  the  Legislature,  can  be 
exercised  by  it.  No  part  of  that  instrument,  except  the  2d  section  of 
article  1st,  provides  for  the  enumerating  of  the  white  male  inhabitants 
of  the  State,  above  the  age  of  twenty-one ;  or  for  fixing  and  apportion- 
ing the  representation  of  such  inhabitants  in  the  General  Assembly. 
By  this  section,  therefore,  the  extent  of  that  power  must  be  judged. 
Unless  from  the  fair  interpretation  of  its  terms,  the  power  claimed  for 
the  Legislature  can  be  inferred,  such  power  does  not  exist.  Keeping 
steadily  in  view  the  express  and  solemn  reservation  in  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
together  with  that  rational  strictness  of  construction,  without  which 
Constitutions  are  of  little  value,  we  may  safely  lay  down  as  principles 
which  commend  themselves  to  the  common  sense  of  every  man, 
that — 

1.  Where  a  power  is  conferred  by  our  Constitution,  and  the  manner 
of  its  exercise  is,  at  the  same  time,  expressly  pointed  out  and  limited, 
such  power  cannot  be  exerted  in  any  other  manner. 

2.  Where  a  power  conferred,  is  expressly  defined  in  ooint  of  the 


MOEGATf    COUNTY    CONTESTED    ELECTION.  7l 

time  when  it  shall  be  exercised,  such  power  cannot  be  exerted  at  any 
time  other  than  that  so  defined. 

3,  Where  a  power  is  delegated  to  be  exercised  at  certain  periods 
pointed  out,  the  exercise  of  the  power  so  delegated,  at  the  time  specified, 
exhausts  such  power,  and  leaves  it,  until  the  period  prescribed  shall 
ao-ain  come  round,  without  any  present  existence  in  the  Constitution. 

Tested  bv  these  principles,  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  the 
power  claimed  for  the  Legislature,  to  alter  the  limits  fixed  for  electoral 
districts  by  the  periodical  apportionment  law,  at  other  times  than  those 
expressly  prescribed,  has  no  shadow  of  existence  in  the  Constitution.  The 
power  to  apportion,  conferred  by  the  second  section,  article  1,  of  that 
instrument,  is  in  so  many  words,  circumscribed  as  to  the  manner  of  its 
exercise.  The  apportionment  must  be  made  according  to  the  number  of 
the  white  male  inhabitants,  above  the  age  of  twenty-one  in  each  county. 
The  time  when  it  may  be  exercised,  is  with  equal  exactitude  pointed  out. 
The  apportionment  is  to  be  fixed  once  in  every  terra  of  four  years. 
And,  by  a  natural  corollary,  the  power,  when  so  exerted  as  prescribed, 
is  exhausted  and  gone,  until  the  case  contemplated  by  the  Constitution 
shall  again  arise.  All  this  may,  in  like  manner,  be  affirmed  of  the 
power  to  enumerate,  as  conferred  in  the  section  before  quoted  ;  for,  al- 
though the  minority  do  not  mean  to  deny,  for  other  purposes,  an  enu 
raeration  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  State  may  be  made  at  any  time,  yet, 
it  seems  to  them  free  from  all  doubt,  that  for  the  purpose  of  apportion- 
ing representation  in  the  General  Assembly,  the  Legislature  can  neither 
take  nor  recognize  any  enumeration  of  the  electors  of  the  State,  or  of 
any  county  within  it,  except  at  the  several  periods  ordained  by  the 
Constitution.  And  the  undersigned  state  here,  as  a  proposition  not  to 
be  disputed,  that  if  it  is  not  competent  for  the  Legislature  to  alter  the 
boundaries  of  electoral  districts,  by  direct  legislation,  such  power  can- 
not, in  any  way,  be  exerted  by  legislation  indirect. 

Let  the  facts  of  the  case,  before  stated,  be  now  applied  to  the  Con- 
stitution. In  1843,  being  at  the  regular  period  prescribed  by  that 
instrument,  an  enumeration  was  had  of  all  the  white  male  inhabitants 
of  the  State  above  twenty-one  years  of  age.  In  the  year  following,  and 
so  soon  as  the  census  was  returned  to  the  General  Assembly,  a  law  was 
passed,  fixing  and  apportioning  the  representation  of  the  State.  That 
law  assigned  to  the  county  of  Morgan,  one  Representative  in  the  years 
'44,  '45,  and  '46,  with  an  additional  Representative  in  1847 — thereby 
erecting  that  county  into  an  electoral  district.  And  the  law  thus,  by 
its  very  terras,  professed  to  fix  the  representation  of  the  county  till  the 
year  1848.  It  also  assigned  to  the  counties  of  Athens  and  Meigs  one 
Representative  for  the  sarae  period,  and  to  Washington  county  one  also. 
It  has  before  been  shown  what  the  limits  were  at  that  time,  of  the 


72  vallais^digham's  speeches. 

territorv  embraced  witliin  tlie  countv  of  Morj^an.     Now,  l>v  the  num- 
ber of  white  male  inhabitants  above  the  age  of  twenty -one,  within  those 
limits  as  they  then  were  defined,  the  Legislature  was  governed  in  ap- 
portioning the  representation  of  that  county.     Any  alteration,  there- 
fore, of  those  limits,  by  taking  from  or  adding  to  the  number  of  such 
inhabitantsv  would  derange  wholly  and  set  aside  the  rule  of  apportion- 
ment by  which  the  express  words  of  the  Constitution  declare  that  the 
Leijislature   shall   proceed  in   such   apportionment.     But  it  might  be 
urged  that  the  law  of  March  12,  1844,  gave  to  the  county  of  Morgan 
one  Representative  in  the  year  1845,  and  that  on  the  day  of  election, 
the  townships  of  Homer  and   Marion  were  parts  of  that  county.     He 
who  would   uro-o  s\ach  an   arcfument,  mistakes  wholly  the  law  and  the 
Constitution.     He  forgets  the  distinction  between  a  county  so  called, 
and  an  electoral  district.     He  forgets,  too,  that  "  county"  is  a  name,  not 
a  thing — a  name  affixed,  for  sake  of  convenience,  to  describe  certain 
territorv,  and  that  it  is  the  territory — the  thing,  not  the  name,  which 
the  Constitution   and  law  mean.     The  rule  or  basis'  of  representation 
places  this  bevond  controversy,  for  assuredly,  the  electors  of  the  terri- 
tory annexed  to  the  county  of  Morgan,  formed  no  part,  at  the  period 
of  enumeration  in  1843,  of  the  electors  of  that  county,  to  whom,  and 
to  whom  alone,  a  Representative  was  apportioned.     The  same  is  true, 
also,  of  the  county  of  Athens,  from  which  the  townships  of  Homer  and 
Marion  were  taken.     Those  townships  Avere,  at  the  enacting  of  the  ap- 
portionment law  of  1844,  parts  of  the  county  last  named.     The  in- 
habitants residing  within  them   at  that  time,  were  a  portion  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Athens,  and  under  the  law  were,  together  with  its  other 
inhabitants,  entitled  to  a  Representative  from  that  county,  and  from  no 
other,  and  had  a  right  to  vote  for  such  Representative,  and  for  no  other. 
If  it  be  the  mere  name  "  county,"  and  not  the  territory,  which  the  law 
and    Constitution   mean,   then   it   would    follow  that   the    Legislature 
might,  at  any  time,  constitutionally  consolidate  a  half  dozen  of  counties 
into  one  called  Morgan,  for  example,  and  then,  by  an  appeal  to  the  letter 
of  the  Constitution,  and  of  the  apportionment  law,  decide  that  such 
countv  was  entitled  to  but  one  Representative.    And  whv  not  ?    Wash- 
ington,  Athens,   Perry,  Meigs,   Monroe,  and  Belmont,  have  all  been 
incorporated  with  or  annexed,  or,  if  the  word  be  better  liked,  attached 
to  Morgan ;  and  the  white  male  inhabitants  above  the  age  of  twenty- 
one,  formerly  residing  in  those  counties,  have  now  become,  by  operation 
of  law,  inhabitants  of  Morgan  county,  entitled  to  vote  in  that  county, 
and  that  onlv  for  its  Representative.     For  if  the  Legislature  may  attach 
townships  to  electoral  districts,  for  electoral  purposes,  it  may  in  like 
manner,  and  for  a  like  purpose,  attach  whole  counties.    But  this  reason- 
ing may  legitimately,  and  without  violence,  be  run  a  step  further.    Sup- 


MOEGAN    COUNTY    CONTESTED    ELECTION.  '73 

pose  the  General  Assembly  change  the  name  of  a  county,  or  consolidate 
a  number  together,  and  give  them  a  new  name,  Middlesex,  for  example ; 
now,  there  being  no  such  county  or  name  found  in  the  apportionment 
law,  no  representation  whatever  could  be  allowed  to  the  electors  who 
might  reside  within  its  limits.     Is  not  this  absurd  ? 

The  undersigned  here  farther  observe,  that  a  very  wide  distinction  is 
to  be  drawn  between  the  power  to  alter  county  lines,  or  change  territory 
or  townships  from  one  county  to  another,  and  a  power  to  effect  such 
changes  in  representative  districts,  and  for  purposes  of  representation. 
The  existence  of  the  one  by  no  means  involves  the  existence  of  the  other. 
Certainly,  thg  Legislature,  instead  of  employing  the  term  "  county" 
alone,  in  the  apportionment  law,  might  describe  the  territory  embraced 
within  such  county,  in  the  words  of  the  statute  defining  the  limits  of  the 
county,  and  erect  that  territory,  so  described,  into  an  electoral  district. 
But,  for  the  sake  of  convenience  and  brevity,  the  simple  terra  county, 
with  its  name  annexed,  as  implying  that  territory,  is  employed ;  and 
thtis,  the  same  territory  is  both  a  county  so  called,  and  an  electoral  dis- 
trict, according  to  the  capacity  in  which  it  is  considered.  And  from 
the  different  capacities  or  functions  assigned  to  them,  arises  the  plaia 
difference  in  the  power  which  the  Legislature  may  exert  over  them. 
The  one  may  be  altered  at  any  time — the  other,  only  at  the  periods  or- 
dained by  tlie  Constitution. 

If  any  doubt  yet  remained  as  to  the  unalterable  nature,  for  four 
years,  of  the  limits  of  electoral  districts  when  once  established,  such 
doubt  ought,  in  the  opinion  of  the  undersigned,  at  once  to  be  yielded 
up,  in  view  of  the  unambiguous  and  emphatic  words  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. "The  number  of  representatives  shall,  at  the  several  periods  of 
making  such  enumeration,  be  fixed  by  the  Legislature,  and  apportionec^ 
among  the  several  counties"  of  the  State.  Now,  if  there  be  any  signifi- 
cancy  in  language — if  words  mean  one  thing,  and  not  another, — nay, 
if  they  mean  any  thing  at  all,  to  fix  cannot,  by  any  refinement  of  con- 
struction, signify  to  loosen,  to  set  afloat, — and  to  fix  for  four  years, 
cannot  mean  to  leave  open  for  change,  at  the  caprice  of  legislators, 
at  any  time  within  the  period  so  prescribed. '  But  it  may  be  argued 
that  it  is  only  the  number  of  representatives  which  is  to  be  fixed,  and 
that  the  term  does  not  apply,  in  grammatical  construction,  to  the  appor- 
tioning of  representation  among  the  several  counties.  Be  it  so.  Yet 
both  the  number  of  the  representatives  and  their  apportionment,  are 
provided  for  in  the  same  section-j-the  same  clause, — the  same  member 
of  the  same  sentence ;  and  if  the  apportionment  may  be  altered  at  a 
time  other  than  the  regular  period  of  enumeration,  then,  by  a  like 
process  of  reasoning,  and  by  the  fair  rules  of  constitutional  construc- 
tion, the  number,  also,  of  representatives,  may  be  altered,  though  that 


74  vallandigham's  speeches. 

number,  by  a  word,  tlian  which  there  is  none  more  significant  within 
the  whole  compass  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue,  be  declared  fixed  for 
the  term  of  four  years. 

There  remains,  yet,  one  point  further  to  be  considered.  By  the  latter 
clause  of  the  3d  section,  article  7th,  of  the  Constitution,  it  is  ordained, 
that  "  every  new  county,  as  to  the  right  of  suffrage  and  representation 
shall  be  considered  as  a  part  of  the  county  or  counties  from  which  it 
was  taken,  until  entitled  by  numbers,  to  the  right  of  representation." 
The  attention  of  the  House  is  here  directed  to  this  part  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, with  the  design  of  affording,  if  possible,  by  way  of  analogy,  some 
light  upon  the  question  which  the  House  is  called  upon  to  decide. 
The  undersigned  had  presumed  that  there  could  be  but  one  opinion  as 
to  its  meaning.  In  this  they  erred,  and  are  now  compelled  to  differ 
totally  with  the  majority  in  the  construction  which  they  put  upon  it. 
The  clause  itself,  in  no  dubious  language,  expressly  points  out  where  the 
electors  of  a  new  county  shall  vote  for  representative,  until  entitled  to 
representation  themselves.  True,  the  words  are,  "  until  entitled  by 
numbers."  But  how  are  their  numbers  to  be  constitutionally  ascer- 
tained? By  enumeration.  And  when  is  such  enumeration  to  be  made  ? 
At  the  several  periods  provided  for  by  section  2d,  article  1st,  of  the 
Constitution — namely,  once  in  every  term  of  four  years,  and  at  no  other 
period.  Such,  also,  the  minority  here  add,  appears  to  have  been  the 
uniform  construction  hitherto  put  upon  the  clause  above  set  forth.  The 
22d  section  of  the  general  election  law  of  1831,  sanctioned  by  the 
Legislature  of  that  year,  and  by  subsequent  concurrence,  and  by  prac- 
tice, provides,  "  that  at  all  elections  for  State  and  county  officers  in  any 
county  laid  off  or  organized  between  the  periods  at  which  the  ratio  of 
representation  is  fixed  by  law,  and  before  the  next  subsequent  period 
for  apportionment  shall  arrive,  two  set  of  poll  books  shall  be  provi- 
ded, etc.,  and  one  of  the  poll  books  of  such  set  shall  be  sealed  up 
by  one  of  the  judges  of  election,  and  be  carried  to  the  old  county 
from  which  such  part  of  the  new  county  was  taken,  etc."  Such 
language  needs  no  commentary.  Tlie  undersigned  have,  with  great 
labor  and  research,  examined  sixty-two  acts  of  Assembly,  laying  off  or 
organizing  sixty  new  counties,  bi^ginning  with  the  first  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  State,  in  March,  1803,  and  ending  in  December,  1832,  a 
period,  of  thirty  years,  and  find  not  one  case  in  all  this  mass  of  legisla- 
tion, in  which  the  Legislature  has  undertaken  to  grant  representation  in 
the  General  Assembly,  to  any  one  of  the  sixty  new  counties  above  re- 
ferred to,  as  distinct  counties,  except  at  the  constitutional  periods,  and 
by  the  general  periodical  apportionment  acts.  Such  a  uniformity  of 
precedent,  upon  a  construction  really  doubtful,  could  not,  perhaps,  be 
found  in  the  legislation  of  any  State. 


MOEGAN    COUNTY   CONTESTED   ELECTION.  75 

As  to  precedents  or  practice,  in  regard  to  the  constitutional  provi- 
sion, more  directly  touched  by  the  question  which  the  House  is  to 
decide ;  the  minority  have  examined  twenty-nine  acts,  beginning  with 
the  year  1804,  and  ending  in  1828,  altering  the  boundaries  of  coun- 
ties, or  attaciiing  portions  of  one  county  to  another,  in  like  manner  as 
done  by  the  law  of  last  session ;  and  have  found  no  one  instance  in 
which  any  of  those  acts  assume  to  change  the  general  apportionment 
law,  or  to  interfere,  in  any  way,  with  the  electoral  districts  defined  by 
it,  or  make  any  enactment  as  to  the  county  or  district  in  which  the 
electors  of  the  territory  annexed  shall  vote  for  representatives  in  the 
General  Assembly.  These  acts  differ  little,  in  substance,  from  the  law 
of  March,  1845. 

The  minority  further  report  that  they  have  found  no  case  where,  by 
contested  election  or  otherwise,  the  question  now  presented  to  the  House, 
has,  at  any  time,  before  arisen.  So  far  as  they  are  advised,  it  is  a 
question  entirely  novel,  and  which  must  be  adjudged  upon  its  own 
merits,  as  they  appear  in  the  facts,  the  law,  and  the  Constitution. 

The  undersigned  have  all  along  argued  as  though  the  Constitution 
were  the  supreme  law  of  the  State,  and  beyond  the  power  of  the  Legis- 
lature to  supersede.  This  is  a  doctrine  which  will  not,  either  here  or 
elsewhere,  be  openly  denied.  An  attempt  to  elevate  the  occasional 
will  of  the  legislator  exercising  a  vicarious  and  delegated  function, 
above  the  permanent  and  exactly  defined  will  of  the  people  in  their 
primordial  and  sovereign  capacity,  will,  in  this  generation,  find  no 
foothold  in  America;  still  less  will  efforts  be  now  made  to  over- 
throw constitutions  by  tumultuary  violence.  But  it  is  not  by  the 
sword,  nor  by  any  open  and  physical  force,  that  constitutions,  in  a 
comparatively  virtuous  and  healthy  age,  are  most  likely  to  be  sub- 
verted. A  more  slow,  but  equally  dangerous  and  certain,  engine  of 
attack  has  been  devised — the  insidious  sap  and  mine  of  construction. 
If  constitutions  are  to  be  rasped,  and  frittered,  and  pared  down  into 
nothingness,  by  the  constructive  process,  they  had  far  better  be  abol- 
ished at  once.  If,  through  such  process,  they  cease  to  be  a  barrier  to 
the  occasional  and  rampant  impulses  of  majorities,  let  not  our  public 
records  be,  henceforth,  encumbered  with  such  instruments.  The  under- 
signed can  present  in  no  stronger  light  the  necessity  of  preserving, 
unimpaired,  the  exact  boundaries  of  the  Constitution,  than  by  setting 
before  the  House  the  dangers  of  the  interpretation  claimed  by  the 
majority  of  the  committee.  Grant  to  the  Legislature  but  the  power  to 
alter,  at  any  time,  the  electoral  districts,  and,  still  more,  to  establish 
new  counties,  and  provide  them  at  once  with  a  separate  representation 
in  the  Assembly,  and  where  shall  be  the  end?  The  whole  political 
power  of  the  State  is  at  the  command  of  a  temporary,  and  it  may  be, 


76  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

a  rer.liless  and  unprincipled,  majority.  From  all  this,  nothinir  can 
deliver  us  but  a  resort  to  the  ultima  ratio  populi,  the  inalietiable  though 
formidable  right  of  Revolution.  The  minority  will  pursue  these  conse- 
quences no  farther. 

Confident,  therefore,  that  the  right  of  the  sitting  member,  from  the 
county  of  Morgan,  to  the  scat  which  he  now  holds,  is  clear  ;ind  unques- 
tionable, the  undersigned  report  accordingly. 

The  following  notice  of  the  foregoing  Report,  was  from  the  pen  of 
C.  C.  IIazewell,  now  of  the  Boston  Traveler,  and  was  published  in 
the  Ohio  Statesman,  of  December  25,  1845,  of  which  paper  he  was 
then  editor : 

This  Repovt  is  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Yalla\digham,  the  young  but  most  able 
member  from  Columbiana.  It  is  one  of  the  most  clear,  logical,  and  convincing 
arguments  that  it  has  ever  fallon  to  our  lot  to  read,  and  sliould  be  circulated  in  all 
parts  of  the  .State.  It  cannot  fail  to  carry  conviction  to  every  impaitial  mind,  and 
to  raise  the  reputation  of  its  author  to  a  very  high  point  indeed.  Columbiana  may 
well  be  proud  of  her  young  member,  who  has  already  achieved  for  himself  an  en- 
viable name  as  a  debater,  for  skill  and  fairness,  and  as  a  writer  at  once  powerful 
and  dignified.  Re  is  of  that  class  of  men  whom  the  Ohio  Democracy  need,  to 
place  them  in  the  position  which  they  occupied  a  few  years  ago,  and  which  has 
been  lost,  not  through  any  dislike  of  the  people  to  Democratic  principles,  but  be- 
cause the  party  has  been  unhappily  identified  witli  the  names  and  character  of 
two  or  three  detestable  individuals,  whose  utter  worthlessness  was  enough  to  sink 
any  party.  In  Mr.  Vallaxdigiiaj:  we  have  such  a  man  as  the  Democracy  of  Ohio 
can  rely  upon,  one  who  does  not  think  it  necessary  to  disgi-ace  great  talents  by 
bufiFoonery  and  immorality,  in  order  to  achieve  a  sudden  notoriety.  A  gentleman 
and  a  scholar,  and  thoroughl}-  attached  to  the  principles  of  Democracy,  we  can 
always  rely  upon  him  for  good  services,  especially  when  grave  and  important  mat- 
ters come  up,  requiring  the  action  of  the  highest  order  of  mind,  to  have  them 
properly  discussed  and  settled. 


ON   COT^STITUTIO^S^AL   EEFOEM.  T 


hr 


SPEECH  ON  CONSTITUTIONAL  REFOEM, 
In  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives,  January  16,  1847.* 

This  bill,  Mr.  Speaker,  proposes  the  initiatory  step  towards  a  change 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  State.  It  provides  a  way  for  resolving  again 
into  its  original  elements  the  machinery  of  our  State  government,  for  the 
purpose  of  its  reorganization  by  those  from  whose  hands  it  came,  and 
whose  creature  it  is.  With  that  object  in  view,  and  in  pursuance  of 
the  mode  pointed  out  in  the  existing  constitution,  it  proposes  to  sub- 
mit to  THE  PEOPLE  whether  they  desire  any  amendment  or  change  in 
that  instrument. 

It  is  now  forty-four  years,  Mr.  Speaker,  since  our  present  constitution 
was  established.  At  that  period  of  our  history,  the  State  of  Ohio, 
stretching  from  Pennsylvania  to  the  Indiana  line,  and  from  the  Ohio 
River  to  the  northern  lakes,  with  an  area  of  thirty-nine  thousand  square 
miles,  was  an  almost  unbroken  wilderness,  with  a  population  of  but 
forty-eight  thousand  inhabitants,  settled  at  intervals,  in  the  openings, 
where  "  the  arm  of  the  frontier-man  had  levelled  the  forest  and  let  in 
the  sun."  Few  in  numbers,  these  inhabitants  were  simple  also  in  their 
habits,  and  fewer  still  in  their  wants.  The  hardy  pioneers,  who,  pene- 
trating this  wilderness,  had  expelled  its  native  savage  occupants,  and 
built  a  few  log  cabins  in  its  solitudes,  till  then  undisturbed  by  the 
reforming  axe  of  the  European  race,  made  few  contracts,  committed 
not  many  crimes,  and  needed  but  the  simplest  forms  of  government. 
Courts  of  justice  were  held,  at  that  early  period,  at  not  above  nine  or 
ten  different  points  within  the  whole  territory  of  Ohio  ;  and  the  lawyers 
of  the  Cincinnati  bar  of  that  day  practised  regularly  in  the  courts  of 
Detroit  (then  within  our  limits),  traversing  for  that  purpose  the  whole 
distance  on  horseback,  and  sleeping  often  in  mid-winter  upon  the  bare 
snow   of  the  forest,  because  in  many  places,  for  forty  miles  together, 

*  This  speech  was  made  in  support  of  Mr.  Yallandigham's  bQl  for  calling  a 
Convention  to  amend  the  Constitution  of  Ohio.  The  bill  received  a  majority,  but 
not  two-thirds,  and  therefore  failed.  At  a  subsequent  session,  a  similar  bill  was 
passed.  To  the  people  of  Ohio  this  will  be  a  document  of  permanent  value  and 
interest,  as  having  indicated  certain  important  and  necessary  changes  in  the 
organic  law  of  the  State,  which,  having  been  made,  have  done  much  toward 
securing  the  more  prompt  and  efficient  administration  of  justice.  To  the  general 
reader  this  speech  will  show  that  Mr.  Vallandigham  early  discovered  and  ap- 
preciated the  important  truth  that  all  genuine  progress  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  wise 
and  judicious  conservatism  which  gathers  up,  appropriates,  and  improves  upon 
the  lessons  of  wisdom  and  experience. 


78  ,  YALLA^*DIG HAM'S    SPEECHES 

neitlie*  cabin  nor  other  dwelling  of  white  man  or  savage,  cheered  with 
its  friendly  smoke  the  inhospitable  quietude  of  that  unbroken  wilder- 
ness.* 

It  was  for  such  a  people,  living  in  such  a  territory,  and  with  habits 
such  as  I  have  described,  that  the  convention,  assembled  at  Chillicothe 
on  the  first  day  of  November,  1802,  ordained  a  constitution.  The  men 
who  sat  in  that  convention  were  men  of  great  singleness  of  purpose, 
great  native  intelligence,  and  earnest,  for  the  most  part,  in  their  attach- 
ment to  the  true  principles  of  republican  government.  But,  assembling 
at  a  period  when  written  constitutions  were  comparatively  an  untried 
experiment ;  destitute  of  that  political  science,  the  amazing  progress  of 
which  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  age,  and  of  that  experience 
which  enlightens  and  directs  the  more  fortunate  generation  of  this  day, 
it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  perfect  system  of  government  should  have 
been  ordained  by  them.  And,  more  than  this,  circumstanced  as  they 
were,  and  without  that  foresight  and  amplitude  of  mind  which  a  pro- 
found and  comprehensive  survey  of  the  wants  and  necessities,  as  well 
prospective  as  present,  of  mankind  in  organized  society  can  alone  give 
to  the  statesman,  it  is  still  less  to  be  expected  that,  framing  a  constitu- 
tion adapted  to  the  government  of  fifty  thousand  pioneers  in  the  midst 
of  a  wilderness,  they  should  have  looked  forward  half  a  century,  and  so 
moulded  it  as  to  be  fitted  to  the  condition  of  two  millions  of  people  of 
every  diversity  of  habit  and  education,  and  following  every  occupation 
and  pursuit  known  in  a  highly  civilized  State.  The  most  sagacious 
among  them  could  not  have  foreseen — it  was  not  within  the  limits  of 
human  foresight,  for  history  had  then  furnished  no  example — that  within 
little  more  than  the  ordinary  lifetime  of  a  generation,  a  change  so  pro- 
digious should  mark  the  social  and  political  condition  of  the  common- 
wealth which  thev  were  about  to  establish.  Xot  foreseeing  it,  they 
could  not  provide  for  its  occurrence ;  and,  not  having  provided,  the  evil 
is  upon  us.  They  were  ordaining  a  written  constitution,  and  written 
constitutions,  unlike  those  which  are  the  slow  growth  of  centuries  of 
usage,  cannot  adapt  themselves  to  the  ever-varying  wants  and  circum- 
stances of  a  young  and  growing  people.  But  they  did  know  that  their 
work  was  not  perfect,  and  foresaw  the  necessity  for  a  change  which 
might  at  some  future  day  exist ;  and  accordingly  proWded  that  way  for 
securing  such  change  or  amendment,  in  pursuance  of  which  this  bill  has 
been  introduced. 

I  have  meant  no  disparagement,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  the  wisdom  and 
ability  of  those  who  sat  in  the  convention  of  1802.  They  framed  a 
constitution  full  of  much  that  is  valuable,  and  well  suited  to  the  neces- 
sities of  the  people  in  their  day.     But    we   have    outgrown    it.     The 

*  Burnet's  letters,  1837. 


ox    COXSTITUTIOXAL   REFOEM.  79 

swaddlinof-bands  of  the  infant  have  become  badiv  fittino^  to  the  stalwart 
limbs  of  the  grown-up  giant.  The  convention  adjourned  on  the  twenty- 
ninth  of  November,  1802.  Forty-four  years  of  continued  and  rapid 
progress  in  all  that  belongs  to  man  as  an  individual  or  a  citizen,  have 
obliterated  almost  every  vestige  of  that  condition  of  things  to  which 
the  result  of  their  labors  was  adapted.  The  forty-eight  thousand  inhab- 
itants have  grown  to  two  millions,  spread  over  the  entire  extent  of  the 
territory  now  comprised  within  the  limits  of  Ohio.  In  agriculture,  in 
commerce,  in  manufactures,  in  the  arts  and  sciences  of  all  kinds,  in  liter- 
ature, merchandise,  litigation,  in  all  the  wants  and  all  the  luxuries  of 
civilized  life — from  nothing  in  that  day,  we  have  risen  to  place  ourselves 
in  the  front  rank  among  the  States  of  this  Confederacy.  Having  thus 
outgrown  long  since  the  institutions  prepared  for  us  in  the  infancy  of 
our  State,  efforts  repeated  and  persevering  have  been  made  for  years 
past  to  secure  a  change  in  those  institutions,  conformable  to  the  great 
and  multiplied  changes  in  our  necessities  and  condition  as  a  people.  I 
claim  no  originality  for  this  measure.  Scarce  a  session  has  passed  in 
many  years,  at  which  it  has  not  been  proposed.  Repeatedly  and  earn- 
estly the  executives  of  our  State  have  urged  upon  the  legislature  the 
propriety,  and  necessity  even,  of  pro\dding  for  a  change  in  the  constitu- 
.tion  ;  but  without  success.  Once  only — in  1819 — the  proposition  was 
submitted  to  the  people.  Even  then  the  necessity'  for  amendment  was 
felt  to  be  great.  The  subject  w^as  pressed  upon  the  attention  of  the 
legislature  by  Ethan  A.  Brown,  then  Governor  of  the  State,  and  passed 
with  but  little  opposition.  This,  however,  was  but  seventeen  years 
from  the  formation  of  the  constitution  ;  that  event  was  then  too  recent, 
and  accordingly  the  people  rejected  the  proposition.  But  I  need  only 
remind  gentlemen  that  twenty-eight  years  have  passed  since  that  rejec- 
tion. A  new  generation  has  grown  up.  Our  population  has  doubled 
within  that  period.  Changes  in  all  that  go  to  make  up  the  varied 
condition  of  a  populous  and  civilized  State,  greater  far  than  within  the 
seventeen  years  preceding,  have  since  marked  the  progress  of  the  State. 
Every  year  has  added  to  the  necessity  for  a  radical  change  in  many 
parts  of  the  constitution.  That  necessity  is  at  last  everywhere  admitted. 
Conviction  has  forced  itself  upon  the  minds  of  the  people.  And  now, 
sir,  as  yet  another  effort  in  behalf  of  peaceable  reform,  and  deeply  im- 
pressed Avith  the  responsibility  which  I  have  taken  upon  myself,  perhaps 
too  lightly,  I  have  brought  forward  this  measure,  with  a  hope  and  anxi- 
ety for  its  success  in  this  house,  which  I  cannot  find  language  to  express. 
I  would,  if  I  could  but  embody  and  unbosom  the  deep  feelings  of  my 
heart,  speak  to  this  house  in  words  which,  like  the  Egyptian  darkness, 
might  be  felt  as  with  the  hand,  and  implore  the  passage  of  this  bill. 
I  have  said  that  this  measure  is  but  the  initiatory  step  towards  the 


80  vallakdigiiam's  speeches 

great  reform  to  which  I  have  referred.  Tliat  step  is  discretionary  with 
the  Leutisl.-iture  ;  and  although  such  discretion,  operating  as  a  control 
upon  the  pei  >ple,  ought  to  be  employed  with  a  liberal  hand,  approaching 
to  facility,  yet  there  ought  to  exist  also,  both  some  propriety  or  neces- 
sity for  its  exercise,  and  a  fitness  in  the  time  proposed,  before  the  people 
are  called  upon  to  decide  a  question  of  such  great  importance.  And  if 
I  do  not  succeed  in  establishing  both  these  requisites  to  the  entire  satis- 
faction of  the  House,  I  will  consent  to  abandon  this  bill,  earnest  as  my 
desire  is  that  it  may  become  a  law. 

The  defects  of  the  present  constitution — defects  most  of  which  might 
readily  be  inferred,  and  which  arose  chiefly  from  the  time  and  circum- 
stances of  its  formation — are  so  freely  and  generally  admitted,  that  I 
need  spend  little  time  in  argument,  and  may  content  myself  for  the  most 
part  with  but  briefly  pointing  them  out. 

I  begin  with  the  Judiciary.  And  first,  as  to  the  Supreme  Court, 
the  highest  judicial  tribunal  of  the  State. 

This  court  consists  of  but  four  judges,  any  two  of  whom  constitute  a 
quorum,  and  are  empowered  to  hold  courts.  By  consequence  of  this 
strange  anomaly,  no  decision,  in  case  of  their  disagreeing,  can  be  had 
upon  the  circuit.  But,  besides  this,  it  is  manifest  that  four  judges, 
though  more  than  enough  in  the  early  times  of  the  State,  when  there 
was  not  a  thousandth  part  of  the  litigation  which  presses  now,  in  enor- 
mous mass,  upon  our  courts — indeed,  prior  to  1808,  three  only  were 
appointed — are  quite  too  few  to  dispose,  even  with  the  most  summary 
haste,  of  a  tithe  of  the  business  brought  before  them. 

Nor  is  this  all.  These  self-same  judges,  by  a  provision  growing  out 
of  local  jealousies  in  the  convention  of  1802,  are  required  to  hold  the 
Supreme  Court  once  a  year  in  every  county  in  the  State.  Now  the 
number  of  these  counties — and  they  are  rapidly  increasing — is  eighty- 
two  :  so  that  these  four  judges  are  required  to  hold  no  less  than  eighty- 
two  several  courts,  in  each  and  every  year ;  flying  for  that  purpose  over 
the  whole  of  the  vast  territory  of  Ohio.  The  Supreme  Court  usually 
begins  it  sittings  about  the  first  of  March,  and  closes  about  the  first  of 
December,  so  that  nine  months  only  are  allowed  within  which  to  deter- 
mine upon  the  innumerable  judgments  and  decrees  which  arc,  or  rather 
ought  to  be,  given  in  the  immense  mass  of  business  depending  before 
this  court.  Within  those  nine  months  also,  these  judges  are  compelled 
to  traverse  the  entire  eighty-two  counties  of  the  State,  passing  over 
some  two  thousand  or  more  miles  of  territory,  holding  eighty-two 
courts,  hearing,  or  pretending  to  hear,  and  deciding  upon — still  oftener 
continuing — the  thousands  of  cases  upon  the  docket,  every  one  of  which 
touches  the  property,  the  liberty,  or  the  life  even,  of  the  citizen.  To 
accomplish  all  this,  requires  powers  of  action  and  endurance  not  vouch- 


ox   CONSTITUTIONAL    EEFOEM.  81 

safed  to  mortal  man.  This  is  positively  the  very  worst  part  of  the  system. 
Only  think,  sir,  of  your  Supi'emc  Court,  the  last  depositary  of  the  tre- 
mendous powers  and  responsibilities  of  the  judiqiary,  turned  into  a 
flying  express,  and  running  a  tilt  against  the  wind  on  a  trial  of  speed  ; 
to-day  at  Cleveland,  on  the  lake,  hanging  a  man  by  the  neck  till  dead ; 
to-morrow  at  Cincinnati,  consigning  some  hapless  wretch  to  the  igno- 
miny and  horrors  of  the  penitentiary,  or  ejecting  an  unlucky  suitor  in 
that  great  city  from  a  homestead  worth  millions  perhaps,  on  which  he 
has  spent  the  most  valuable  part  of  a  lifetime  !  Nothing  is  equal  to  it 
— except  it  may  be  the  military  exploits  of  the  great  Frederick,  of  whom 
it  has  been  said  :  "  Yesterday  he  was  in  the  south,  giving  battle  to  the 
Austrian ;  to-day,  in  Saxony  or  Silesia — instantly  he  was  found  to  have 
traversed  the  electorate,  and  was  facing  the  Russian  and  the  Swede,  on 
his  northern  frontier.  If  you  looked  for  his  place  on  the  map,  before 
you  had  found  it  he  had  quitted  it.  He  was  always  marching,  flying, 
falling  back,  wheeling,  attacking,  defending,  surprising,  fighting  every- 
where, and  fighting  all  the  time." 

But  I  have  not  done  yet  with  the  defects.  To  avoid  the  consequences 
of  a  division  among  the  judges  upon  the  circuit,  and  to  secure  some- 
thing like  uniformity  and  weight  to  their  decisions,  the  Legislature  some 
years  ago  devised  an  annual  session  of  all  the  judges,  to  Wit,  four,  at 
Columbus,  to  compose  w^hat  is  called  a  Court  in  Bank.  Nothing  could 
illustrate  and  enforce  one-half  so  well  the  utter  inefficiency  of  the  sys- 
tem, as  so  paltry  an  expedient.  The  very  evils  to  be  remedied  are  but 
made  more  apparent  and  worse.  Four  judges  composing  the  court,  the 
same  equality  of  division  may  arise,  with  this  superadded  evil,  that  two 
upon  a  side  instead  of  one  stand  arrayed  against  each  other,  while  the 
unfortunate  litigants,  meantime,  after  years  of  litigation,  at  the  cost,  per- 
haps, of  half  their  fortunes,  are  compelled  at  last  either  to  arbitrate 
their  disputes,  or  to  wait  till  the  expiration  of  the  term  of  service  of  one 
of  the  judges,  or  perchance  his  death,  or,  what  is  still  less  probable,  his 
resignation — for  "  few  die  and  none  resign" — may  afford  a  chance  for  a 
rehearing  of  the  cause,  and  another  division  of  opinion,  to  be  terminated, 
or  protracted  it  may  be,  after  the  same  fashion. 

Again :  this  court  convenes  in  the  month  of  December.  So  that 
these  same  judges,  after  nine  long  months  of  session  as  a  Supreme  Court, 
and  of  fatigue  and  travel  and  mental  harassment,  "in  journeyings  often, 
in  weariness  and  painfulness  and  in  watchings  often,"  are  hurried  away 
in  a  whirlwind  of  judicial  activity,  to  find  themselves  transformed  sud- 
denly into  a  Court  in  Bank,  with  one  hundred  and  half  as  many  cases 
more,  to  sit  just  four  weeks,  for  the  purpose  of  revising  their  own  deci- 
sions, made  in  the  hurry  of  their  blood-stirring  gallop  through  eighty- 
two  counties  in  the  course  of  nine  months.  Thus,  sir,  after  this  long 
6 


82  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

period  of  judicial  reconnoitring  by  this  corps  of  flying  artillery,  the 
grand  attack  is  ordered,  and  the  whole  citadel,  outworks  and  all,  of  ac- 
curaulated  litigation,  is  to  be  carried  by  assault,  in  the  space  of  four 
weeks.  But  seriously,  Mr.  Speaker,  fotigued  and  exhausted  by  their 
labors  beyond  endurance,  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  convened 
at  the  very  close  of  these  labors,  and  without  a  moment's  respite,  to 
begin  the  investigation  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  cases,  enveloped  amid  a 
mass  of  written  or  printed  arguments  whose  number  and  bulk  would  al" 
most  put  the  blush  of  inferiority  upon  the  ponderous  tomes  of  Thomas 
Aquinas,  or  any  of  the  schoolmen.  Now,  I  beg  to  know,  sir,  if  it  be 
within  the  limits  of  possibility  to  obtain,  in  such  a  condition  of  things, 
such  decisions  as  alone-  become  the  oracles  in  the  last  resort  of  the  law  ? 
^^^lo  that  has  spent  a  moment  in  reflecting  upon  the  nature  and  effect 
of  judicial  adjudications  but  must  know  that  they  ought  to  be  the  work 
of  leisure  and  deliberation,  and  pronounced  upon  a  full  knowledge  only 
of  the  law  and  the  facts;  since,  if  by  an  unjust  decision  my  property, 
my  liberty,  or  my  life  is  taken  away,  the  consequences  are  none  the  less 
calamitous  to  me  than  if  they  had  been  brought  about  by  the  ann  of 
despotism  or  the  power  of  the  sword.  But  upon  the  circuit  there  is 
neither  time  nor  opportunity  for  the  acquisition  of  this  knowledge,  and 
in  Bank  the  case  is  perhaps  Avorse. 

But  the  evil  is  two-fold.  Tke  "  law's  delay"  has  long  since  passed  into 
a  bvword  and  a  reproach  upon  courts  of  justice  in  other  times  and 
countries.  Here  it  is  a  matter  of  necessity,  ordained  in  effect  by  the 
very  constitution  of  the  State.  Hitherto,  sir,  I  have  spoken  as  though 
the  dispatch  of  business  by  the  Supreme  Court,  even  without  a  becom- 
ing consideration,  were  physically  possible.  But  what  is  the  fact  ?  Be- 
tween March  and  December — sometimes  between  April  and  December, 
as  in  the  present  year — this  court  sits  in  eighty-two  different  counties 
extendino-  throughout  the  entire  State.  The  number  of  cases  on  the 
docket  in  these  counties  is  estimated  at  about  three  thousand.  Now, 
the  number  of  weeks  the  court  is  usually  in  session  upon  the  circuit  is 
thirty-six  ;  so  that  an  average  of  just  about  two  and  a  half  days,  Sundays 
included,  is  allowed  to  each  county.  Hamilton  alone  requires  four 
weeks — thirty-two  only  remain  to  be  distributed  among  the  other  eighty- 
one  counties,  and  from  these  is  to  be  deducted  the  time  necessarily  spent 
in  travelling  over  so  many  hundred  miles  of  territory.  Now,  sir,  I  ask 
in  all  earnestness,  if  it  be  in  the  nature  of  things  that  the  one-twentieth 
part  of  the  business  before  the  court  should  be  disposed  of,  even  with 
the  most  headlong  haste,  in  so  short  a  space  of  time  ?  That  man  never 
lived — the  Almighty  never  put  powers  of  action  and  endurance  into 
breathing  human  clay — equal  to  the  task. 

And  now,  sir,  what  is  the  result  of  all  this,  and  how  does  it  accord 


OK   CONSTITUTIOlSrAL   EEFORM.  83 

with  the  rights  of  the  citizen  and  the  intent  of  the  constitution  itself? 
That  instrument  never  meant  to  interpose  such  a  barrier  between  the 
citizen  and  his  rights.  Its  preamble  declares  it  to  be  ordained,  "  in  order 
to  ESTABLISH  JUSTICE."  Again  says  the  Bill  of  Rights,  "  That  the  general, 
freat,  and  essential  principles  of  liberty  and  free  government  may  be  re- 
cognized, and  forever  unalterably  established,  \ve  declare  : 

"  Sec.  7.  That  all  courts  shall  be  open,  and  every  person,  for  an  injury  done  him  in 
his  lands,  goods,  person,  or  reputation,  shall  have  remedy  by  due  course  of  law,  and 
right  and  justice  administered  without  denial  or  delay." 

Such  was  the  design  of  the  constitution,  and  such  the  earnest  and  em- 
phatic language  in  which  that  design  was  expressed.  But  how  is  it  now 
carried  out  ?  "  All  courts  shall  be  open."  True,  there  is  no  literal  in- 
fringement of  this  injunction.  Your  courts  are  open.  The  docket  is 
there,  and  the  clerk  to  issue,  and  the  sherilf  to  serve  your  process.  But 
the  mockery  is  only  the  more  galling.  Open  !  ay,  too  open.  But  be- 
ware, unfortunate  suitor,  beware ;  there  is  no  regress  from  this  worse 
than  Cretan  labyrinth.  The  footprints  around  this  den  of  the  lion  all 
point  towards  its  entrance. 

"  And  ever]/  person,  for  an  injury  done  him,  shall  have  remedy." 
Could  words  more  significant  be  marshalled  together  in  any  language  ? 
But  what  is  the  efiect  of  a  practically  contratlictory  provision  of  the 
same  instrument  ?  Every  person  shall  have  remedy.  Now,  does  not 
everj'  lawyer  know  that  none  but  the  more  wealthy  and  influential  can 
afford  the  "  expensive  luxury  "  of  protracted  litigation  ?  Take  but  a 
single  example  of  daily  occurrence.  You  commence  suit  in  the  Common 
Pleas  at  its  April  term.  Your  cause  is  just,  but  your  adversary's  lawyer 
thinks  he  detects  a  flaw  in  the  declaration.  A  demurrer  is  put  in.  The 
June  term  comes ;  business  presses ;  law  arguments  can  be  heard  only 
at  the  end  of  the  term,  and  then  in  the  hurry  and  confusion  you  either 
deem  it  unsafe  to  hazard  your  case,  or  the  court  are  unable  to  hear  it. 
You  suffer  a  continuance.  November  term  arrives,  and  the  demurrer  is 
argued  and  overruled.  Surely  you  will  now  have  justice  and  remedy 
without  further  denial  or  delay.  But  stop  ;  that  remedy  is  to  be  by  "  due 
course  of  law,"  and  the  courts  will  not  dispose  of  two  several  issues  in 
the  same  cause  at  the  same  term.  Again  continued,  is  the  mandate  of 
the  judge.  It  is  now  April  term,  and  the  issue  is  made  up,  when,  lo,  a 
material  witness  is  suddenly  found  absent  by  the  defendant,  beyond  the 
process  of  the  court.  What  then  ?  an  affidavit,  and  yet  another  contin- 
uance. Or  worse  ;  after  waiting,  perhaps,  a  whole  fortnight  wnth  your 
witnesses,  expecting  the  trial  every  hour,  the  court  is  compelled  to  ad- 
journ without  reaching  your  case.  A  whole  year  is  now  already  gone 
since  you  began  suit,  coiifident  behind  the  constitutional  shield  against 
delay.     But  skilful  legal  tacticians  have  turned  the  flank  of  the  consti- 


84  vallandigham's  speeches- 

tution.  Disheartened  and  vexed  almost  beyond  endurance,  you  yet 
make  another  effort,  and  the  June  term  brings  the  consummation  of 
your  hopes.  Trial  is  had,  and  you  have  obtained  a  verdict  But  a  new 
trial  is  moved  for ;  the  court  hear  the  argument,  and  coolly  pocket  the 
motion,  telling  you  in  vulgar  law  Latin,  Curia  vult  advisare.  In  Novem- 
ber the  motion  is  overruled.  But  lo,  a  bill  of  exceptions  has  been  pro- 
vided by  your  adversary  and  you  are  transported  to  the  Supreme  Court, 
that  lazar-house  of  litigation,  where  "  hope  never  comes  that  comes  to 
all."  Well,  sir,  some  time  between  the  next  March  and  December,  the 
"  angel  visit"  of  that  august  flying  squadron  is  announced,  and  you  re- 
pair to  the  court-room  just  in  time  to  find  the  court  adjourned  and  on 
horseback  for  the  next  county.  Another  year  revolves — the  third  since 
you  applied  for  that  remedy  which  you  thought  to  obtain  without 
"  denial  or  delay" — and  your  case  is  heard.  But  behold,  the  judges 
disagree,  and  the  case  is  reserved  to  Bank.  Tlie  scales  now  fall  from 
your  eyes,  and  you  find  yourself  involved  in  what  you  deem  intennina- 
ble  litigation.  It  is  too  late,  however,  to  retreat,  and  after  one  or  two 
years  more,  or  three  it  may  be,  you  again  obtain  a  tardy  decision  in 
your  favor,  and  enter  upon  the  enjoyment  of  your  rights.  But  the  end 
is  not  yet.  Yours  mjy  have  been  a  chancery  suit,  and  just  at  the  mo- 
ment you  begin  to  sit  down  in  repose  from  the  fatigues  of  litigation,  a 
6^7/  of  revieio  is  filed  by  your  indomitable  adversar}-.  And  after  passing 
again  through  the  same  courts,  and  the  same  tedious  process  of  procras- 
tination, after  five  or  six  years  more,  an  adverse  decision  is  obtained 
against  you ;  and  stripped  at  last  of  every  thing,  worried,  exhausted, 
indignant,  you  give  up  in  despair.  Now  I  appeal  to  every  lawyer  to 
say  whether  the  process  I  have  described  may  not  be  passed  through  in 
almost  every  case,  and  whether  it  is  not  passed  through  in  every  fiercely 
litiorated  case  brought  into  court. 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  "  due  course  of  law"  by  which  "  every 
person"  shall  obtain  remedy  for  an  injury  done  to  person,  property,  or 
reputation.  Sir,  I  will  not  stop  to  gauge  the  dimensions  of  a  purse 
long  enough  and  wide  enough  to  support  the  enormous  expense  of  such 
litigation — to  say  nothing  of  the  mental  fatigue  and  harassment  worse 
than  any  pecuniary  consideration. 

But,  again :  "  Right  and  justice  are  to  be  administered  withoft 
DENIAL  OR  DELAY."  Sir,  I  havc  Said  enough  already  to  satisfy  every 
man  that  the  practice  of  our  courts  is  but  a  solemn  mocker}*  of  the 
constitution,  though  the  fault  is  in  that  instrument  itself.  Without 
denial  or  delay  !  Not  so  ;  a  mockery,  mere  mockery,  every  Tvord  of  it 
What,  no  delay,  when  one,  two,  five,  eight,  twelve  years  even  are  ex- 
hausted in  insupportably  protracted  litigation,  the  miserable  litigant 
stretched,  meantime,  upon   the   rack   of  a  mental   torture,  enough  to 


OlS"    COXSTITTJTIONAL   EEFOEM.  85 

divide  soul  and  body  ?     Call  you  that  administering  right  and  justice 
without  delay  ? 

But  is  there  not  a  practical  denial  also  ?  If  the  delay,  and  expense, 
and  mental  harassment  of  a  heavy  and  protracted  lawsuit,  are  such  as 
to  drive  suitors  from  our  courts,  and  compel  them  to  forego  the  sub- 
mission of  their  controversies  to  the  constitutional  tribunals  of  the  land, 
acquiescing  rather  in  every  species  of  injustice  and  oppression,  how 
much  better  is  their  condition  than  if  you  were  to  wall  up  the  doors  of 
your  court-rooms,  or  to  forbid  entrance  except  to  the  favored  few  who 
are  rich?  The  denial,  the  practical  denial,  is  just  the  same,  and  the 
ruinous  results  upon  public  faith  and  to  private  right  just  as  aggravated. 
Why,  sir,  it  is  of  no  moment  to  the  suitor,  so  far  as  it  affects  his  life,  or 
person,  or  property,  or  reputation,  whether  the  injury  be  done  him  by 
open  despotism,  or,  though  forbidden  by  the  letter  of  the  constitution, 
yet  compelled  by  the  force  of  circumstances.  The  end  alike  of  both  is 
death,  death  to  his  rights.  Rather,  then,  let  us  abolish  the  mere  form 
of  government,  and  go  back  to  the  first  law  of  might,  since,  escaping 
thus  the  pretended  benefits  of  political  organization,  we  shall  escape  its 
burdens  also. 

Having  now  pointed  out  briefly  the  two  great  opposite  evils  of  our 
system,  namely,  haste  and  delay,  as  exhibited  in  the  Supreme  Court,  I 
pass  to  the  Common  Pleas.  And  here  it  need  hardly  be  remarked,  that 
not  a  few  of  the  evils  spoken  of  flow  necessarily  from  the  organization 
of  these  courts  also.  But  I  shall  not  weary  the  House  with  repetition, 
adding  only  that  to  them^  in  the  first  resort,  is  committed  almost  the 
entire  mass  of  judicial  business  in  the  State,  both  at  law  and  in  chan- 
cery ;  requiring,  therefore,  in  the  judges  of  these  courts,  an  extent  of 
ability  and  learning,  and  of  aptitude  for  the  office  of  judge,  which  it  is 
given  chiefly  to  the  Mansfields,  the  Eldons,  and  the  Marshalls  of  the 
profession,  to  possess.  The  great  fault,  then,  of  the  Common  Pleas 
consists  in  the  constitutional  necessity  for  having  not  less  than  two  asso- 
ciate judges  for  each  court.  Usually  there  are  three,  and  these  are 
almost  always  men  of  no  learal  knowledcre  or  education  whatever — fre- 
quently  of  no  knowledge  or  education  at  all,  and  who  are  rarely  con- 
sulted upon  law  points,  or  if  consulted  (and  then  only  for  form's  sake) 
acquiesce  readily  in  the  opinion  of  the  presiding  judge.  I  speak  in 
general  terms,  for  I  have  seen  associates  now  and  then,  whose  natural 
dignity  and  good  sense  made  them,  in  all  but  the  forms  and  niceties  of 
the  law,  an  overmatch  for  the  lawyer  who  had  been  elevated,  unhappily, 
to  a  seat  upon  the  bench.  But  these  are  exceptions,  and  even  if  they 
were  found  in  every  court,  they  could  not  make  the  system  much  the 
less  defective.  For  of  what  use  are  these  men,  not  learned  in  the  law  ? 
except,  indeed,  in  the  mere  formal  business  of  probate  and  administra- 


86  TALLA^'DIG^A^^S    SPEECHES. 

tion,  or  in  the  granting  of  licenses  to  keep  tavern.  At  best  they  are 
but  an  unnecessary  encumbrance,  and  if  erected  into  an  Orphan's  Court, 
with  the  powers  now  exercised  chiefly  by  them  in  the  Common  Pleas, 
apart  from  the  president-judge,  might  very  easily  and  to  much  advan- 
tage be  dispensed  with. 

I  come  now  to  the  mode  of  election  and  tenure  of  office.  That  elec- 
tion is  by  the  Legislature  on  joint  ballot,  and  for  the  term  of  seven 
years.  To  all  this  I  am  opposed.  If  you  do  not  come  back  to  the 
ancient  method  of  Executive  nomhiations  to  be  confirmed  by  the  Senate, 
w^ith  a  tenure  for  life,  or  during  good  behavior,  a  mode  and  tenure  alto- 
gether adverse  to  the  genius  of  our  institutions,  and  tolerated  in  the 
federal  constitution  only  because  it  is  better  to  tolerate  some  evils  there, 
than  to  run  the  hazard  of  evils  far  worse,  by  too  frequent  and  great 
changes  in  an  instrument  founded  upon  so  tender  and  delicate  a  com- 
pact, and  embracing  so  many  and  such  varied  conflicting  interests — if, 
I  say,  you  cannot  come  back  to  this,  I  see  nothing  to  be  gained  by  with- 
holding the  election  of  Judges  from  the  people.  The  present  system 
has  no  one  advantage  over  the  mode  I  speak  of — a  mode  adopted  long 
ago,  without  pollution  to  justice,  or  prejudice  to  the  sacred  and  elevated 
character  of  the  judiciary,  in  Mississippi,  and  more  recently,  by  the  new 
constitutions  of  Louisiana,  Texas,  Iowa,  and  Xew  York.  I  admit  that 
once  I  entertained  and  expressed  apprehension  for  the  purity  and  safety 
of  the  judiciaiy,  in  the  event  of  popular  elections.  But  my  little  ex- 
perience and  my  observation  of  judicial  appointments  within  a  few  years 
past  (I  may  add  veiy  recently),  have  satisfied  me  that  as  good  and  bet- 
ter selections  will  be  made  by  the  people,  than  by  this  or  by  any  Legisla- 
ture. Political  connection  with  the  party  in  the  majority,  is  now  and 
always  has  been  made  a  prerequisite  in  the  candidate  :  for  when,  I  beg 
to  know,  did  a  whig  Legislature  elect  democrats  to.  judgeships,  or  a  demo- 
crat Legislature  elect  whigs  ?  In  elections  by  the  people  it  could  be  no 
worse.  And  Ambos's  saloon  would  find  fewer  jMtrons  then.  The  general 
principle  surely  is  that  all  elections  ought  to  be  by  the  people  direct ; 
and  the  case  should  be  a  strong  one  to  justify  a  departure  from  the  rule. 
I  admit  that  the  judiciary  is  by  far  the  strongest;  and  that  there  are 
reasons  peculiar  to  it,  and  not  applicable  to  the  other  departments,  in 
favor  of  the  exception.  But  I  repeat  and  insist  that  unless  you  can 
secure  the  full  benefit  to  be  derived  from  a  different  method  of  appoint- 
ment, it  is  both  wrong  and  vain  to  abandon  a  general  principle  so  vital, 
and  so  consonant  with  the  spirit  of  our  institutions.  Give  but  a  suf- 
ficient term  of  years  to  the  tenure,  and  above  all,  fixing  a  minimum  com- 
pensation liberal  enough  to  secure  the  best  virtues  and  talent  of  the  bar, 
thus  place  the  salary  of  the  Judge  beyond  the  tampering  of  ^^llga^  dema- 
gogues, and  you  have  nothing  to  fear  from  a  popular  election.     In  these 


0:N^    C02TSTITUTI0XAL   EEFQEM.  87 

opinions  and  in  tlie  con\'iction  whicib  forced  them  upon  me,  I  am  both 
honest  and  sincere.  I  do  not  know,  indeed,  that  the  mode  of  electing 
Judges  just  pointed  out,  would  at  this  time  meet  the  approbation  of  the 
people  of  this  State,  or  even  of  a  majority  of  this  House.  I  think  the 
people  are  with  us.  I  know  they  will  be,  and  that  right  speedily.  But 
I  entreat  most  earnestly  that  no  man  here  vote  against  this  bill  because 
there  might  arise  a  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  the  particular  pro\dsions 
of  the  constitution  to  be  framed,  and  because  he  is  afraid  his  views  of 
political  organization  might  not  prevail  in  the  convention.  Such  diver- 
sity must  of  necessity  exist ;  but  the  majority  should  govern  ;  and  if  the 
people  to  whom  the  constitution  would  be  submitted,  approved,  whose 
voice  should  be  lifted  up  in  complaint  ? 

I  turn  now  from  the  judiciary,  to  point  out  defects  in  other  parts  of 
the  constitution.  And  first,  the  want  of  a  check  upon  the  legisla- 
tive POWEK  to  incur  public  DEBTS.  Made  wise  by  a  whole- 
some but  severe  experience,  in  nearly  every  constitution  adopted  with- 
in the  last  ten  years,  the  people  have  provided  some  such  restriction : 
and  surely  we  in  Ohio  have  had  good  cause  to  lament  the  want  of  it 
in  ours.  The  principle  of  the  check  is  plain.  The  property  of  the 
whole  people  is  confiscated  in  the  shape  of  taxes,  to  provide  for  the 
liquidation  of  the  debt.  Foremost  indeed,  it  is  mortgaged,  "  pledged," 
and  then  the  alternative  is  either  payment  or  repudiation  :  the  first  is 
onerous  ;  the  last  iniquitous  and  disgraceful.  Now  assuredly  it  is  but 
fair  that  they  who  must  pay,  should  first  give  express  consent  to  the 
debt ;  and  the  especial  reason  why  express  consent  should,  in  this  case, 
first  be  obtained,  by  direct  vote  of  the  people,  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the 
fact,  that  every  citizen  is  compelled  to  bear  his  proportion  of  a  burden 
from  which,  except  in  hopeless  poverty,  there  is  no  escape.  I  desire  to 
be  understood ;  the  penalty  of  the  law  against  murder  may  readily  be 
avoided  by  refraining  from  the  perpetration  of  the  murder.  Not  so  with 
tax  laws.  Now  to  unlimited  power  in  the  Legislature  over  this  subject, 
I  object.  Combinations  and  local  influences  and  interests,  have  too 
powerful  a  control  in  legislative  assemblies,  to  make  them  the  safe  de- 
positaries of  so  tremendous  a  power.  Providently,  therefore,  and  wisely 
did  the  constitution  recently  submitted  to  the  people  of  Missouri  (though 
rejected)  provide  that, 

"  The  General  Assembly  shall  have  no  power  to  pass  any  law  whereby  any 
debt  shall  be  created,  that  shall  cause  the  entire  indebtedness  of  the  State,  con- 
tracted under  this  Constitution,  to  exceed  at  any  one  time  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars,  except  in  cases  of  war,  insurrection,  or  invasion. 

"  But  the  General  Assembly  may  propose  by  a  vote  of  a  majority  of  all  the  mem- 
bers elected  to  both  branches  thereof,  the  creation  of  a  debt  for  any  specified  pur- 
pose, which  shall  be  submitted  to  the  direct  vote  of  the  people  at  the  next  general 
election  thereafter,  and  if  approved  by  a  majority  of  the  qualified  voters  voting  ou 


88  VALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECHES. 

such  question,  shall  be  of  full  force  and  effect ;  provided  that  each  proposition  shall 
be  for  one  object  alone,  and  shall  propose  tlie  ways  and  means  by  taxation  for  the 
payment  of  the  debt  and  interest,  as  they  become  due;  and  provided  further,  that 
no  more  than  one  proposition  shall  be  submitted  by  any  one  session  of  the  General 
Assembly,  and  that  the  debt  proposed  shall  not  have  a  longer  time  to  run  than 
twenty  years." 

Somewhat  similar  also  is  the  restriction  in  the  recent  constitution  of 
New  York.  Now,  whether  such  provision  were  adopted  in  so  many 
words  or  not,  some  restriction  certainly  ought  to  be  imposed  upon  the 
leijislative  exercise  of  a  power  so  delicate  and  momentous. 

The  requirement  of  an  annual  session  of  the  legislature  is  the 
defect  in  the  present  constitution  to  wliicli   I  next  advert;    and  the 
remedy  proposed  will,  I  know,  meet  the  almost  unanimous  concurrence 
of  the  House.      I  mean  biennial  sessions,  with  a  provision  for  extra- 
ordinary sessions  in  great  emergencies.     This  also  is  a  modem   and 
highly  popular  improvement  in  constitutional  science.     Into  most  of 
the  constitutions  recently  organized  it  has  been  freely  admitted,  and  at 
the  late  general  election  in  Maryland  it  was  ordered  by  a  large  majority 
to  be  incorporated  into  the  constitution  of  that  State  by  special  amend- 
ment.    Though  by  no  means  persuaded  that  it  is  the  all-healing  remedy 
tor  the  many  ills  of  legislation,  I  need  not  argue  long  to  satisfy  this 
House  that  those  worst  and  most  costly  of  all  the  evils  of  a  representa- 
tive system  of  government,  hasty,  excessive,  and  unstable  legislation,  must, 
of  necessity,  be  greatly  diminished  were  the  Legislature  to  a§semble  but 
once  in  two  or  three  years.      Most  also  of  this  legislation  is  special  and 
private.     Here,  sir,  is   the   volume  of   local    laws  for   the    session    of 
1844-45,  numbering  in  all,  together  with   the  resolutions,  four  hun- 
dred and  seventy,  while  the  number  of  laws  of  a  general  character 
passed  at  the  same  session,  reached  to  but  eighty-nine.     The  former 
embrace  almost  every  variety  of  subject  from  the  incorporation  of  a  bank 
down  to  the  changing  of  a  man's  name,  or  the  laying  out  of  a  back  alley 
in  a  paltry  village.     The  assembling  annually  of  the  Legislature  would 
seem  to  remind  the  citizens  of  this  State  that  they  may  now  find  a  ready 
instrument  wherewith  to  have  that  done  which  nobody  and  nothing 
else  will  do.     A  thousand  schemes  of  crude,  or  absurd,  or  useless,  per- 
haps iniquitous  legislation,  are  thus  projected,  which  otherwise  would 
never  have  been  devised.     Self-reliance    is  forgotten.     The  individual 
man,  living,  breathing,  God-created,  exulting  in  the  might  and  majesty 
of  an  immortal  and  almost  omnipotent  nature — the  man  God  made 
in  his  own  imafre,  and  into  whose  nostrils  He  breathed  the  breath  of 
life — man,   conquering  the  elements,   making  the  lightnings  his  mes- 
sengers, and  thrusting  the  storms  under  his  feet,  is  lost  sight  of,  and  the 
graven  images,  the  base  gods  of  legislative  creation,  which,  "  having  eyes 
see  not,  and  ears  hear  not,"  are  bowed   down  to    and  worshipped,  till 


ON   CONSTITUTIO]S"AL    EEFOKM.  89 

none  other  are  deemed  able  to  save.  To  the  government  all  eyes  are 
directed ;  by  it  all  the  ills  of  life  are  to  be  dispelled,  and  from  it  all  bless- 
ings to  flow.  Not  a  bridge  can  be  erected,  not  a  highway  laid  out,  nor 
a  turnpike  graded,  without  the  intervention  of  the  Legislature.  Her- 
cules is  always  invoked,  and  a  god  brought  upon  the  stage  even  when 
there  is  no  "nodus"  worthy  of  such  agency.  The  "let  alone  policy," 
that  first  and.  most  ennobling  of  all  political  maxims,  which  teaches  man 
to  rely  mainly  upon  the  powers  and  attributes  of  his  own  nature,  and  to 
distrust  the  omnipotence  of  government  to  dispel  evils  and  create  bless- 
ings, is  cast  aside,  and  soul-debasing  prostration  before  political  and 
'corporate  organization,  substituted  in  its  stead.  I  say  nothing  of  the 
cost  to  the  people.  The  evil  strikes  deeper:  the  corruption  reaches 
that  which  is  more  delicate  than  the  purse;  and  there  is  no  medicine 
nor  surgery  equal  to  the  cure. 

But  besides  the  excess  of  legislation,  much,  of  it  is  necessarily  hasty, 
and,  worst  of  all,  unstable.  The  law  of  yesterday  is  animlled  to-day ; 
and  one  Legislature  meets  only  to  set  aside  the  acts  of  its  predecessor. 
The  sound  of  the  hammers,  tinkering  perpetually  at  the  laws,  is  heard 
at  all  hours  in  the  halls  of  the  Legislature.  Acts  amendatory,  supple- 
mentary, constructive,  declaratory,  repealing,  explanatory,  are  piled 
upon  acts,  till  not  unfrequently  the  parts  in  force  have  to  be  traced 
back  through  ten  successive  volumes,  and  meantime  every  thing  like 
uniformity  and  certainty  is  lost,  and  courts,  lawyers,  and  litigants, 
floundering  in  a  sea  of  conflicting  and  contradictory  legislation,  are 
alike  driven  to  despaic  No  man,  not  even  the  legal  profession,  can 
keep  up  with  the  striding  progress  of  law-making.  Cases  are  begun 
under  one  statute,  heard  upon  a  second,  and  decided  upon  a  third.  Is 
not  all  this  an  evil  and  an  oppression  not  to  be  endured  ?  But  it  is 
fastened  upon  you  by  the  constitution :  it  is  ordained  and  established 
as  part  of  the  fundamental  law  of  the  State ;  and  the  remedy  is  through 
that  measure  only,  which  with  as  earnest  entreaty  as  ever  came  from 
human  lips,  I  now  urge  upon  the  house  to  adopt.  There  is  no  other 
I'cmedy  for  evils  which  are  corrupting  the  people,  and  poisoning  the 
fountain  of  legislation.  Here,  in  this  remedy  alone,  is  there  enough, 
amply  enough  to  compensate  for  all  the  cost  and  hazard  of  a  reorgani- 
zation of  our  political  system.  And  I  implore  gentlemen  as  they  love 
liberty,  as  they  reverence,  and  would  hand  down  our  free  institutions 
to  their  children  unimpaired,  not  to  defeat  this  bill. 

[Mr.  V.  then,  said  that  there  were  many  other  evils  and  defects  in  substance  in 
the  constitution,  which  would  need  a  remedy,  but  he  would  pass  to  the  consider- 
ation of  those  which,  though  in  matter  of  form,  arrangement,  and  style,  were  yet 
not  to  be  disregarded.  He  then  took  up  the  constitution,  reading  and  commenting 
at  some  length  upon  sections  two,  four,  seven,  nine,  nineteen,  and  twenty-six,  of 


90  VALLA^'DIG1IAM'8    SPEKCHE8. 

the  flrst  article ;  and  upon  article  four,  article  seven  section  five  ;  and  sections  six 
and  twenty-seven  of  article  eight — more  min\itoly  and  earnestly  upon  the 
seventh  section  of  the  first  article,  showing  that  so  carelessly  was  this  as  well  as 
other  sections  drawn  up,  that  it  literally  excluded  every  person  from  the  Senate 
"who  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,"  or  who  "shall  have  resided  two  years 
in  the  county  or  district  immediately  preceding  the  election;"  or  who  "shall  have 
paid  a  state  or  county  tax,"  unless  such  person  "  shall^have  been  absent  on  the 
public  business  of  the  United  States  or  of  this  State,"  in  which  event  he  might,  if 
not  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  be  eligible  to  the  Senate,  though  he  had  resided  the 
two  years  preceding  his  election  in  the  county  or  district.*  Mr.  V.  then  pro- 
ceeded:] 

The  necessity  and  propriety  of  a  change  in  the  constitution  of  this 
State  are  so  rcailily  and  universally  admitted,  that  I  have  spent  too  much 
time,  perhaps,  in  speaking  to  this  point  of  my  argument.  But  I  desired 
to  present  them  the  more  \dvidly  before  the  members  of  this  House, 
because  no  mere  cold  conviction  or  assent  of  judgment,  I  feared,  could 
command  their  support  to  this  measure,  without  an  accompanying  im- 
pulse from  the  will.  Scarce  a  man  who  has  spent  one  moment's  reflec- 
tion upon  this  great  question  but  will  tell  you,  "  I  admit  the  necossit}-  of 
amendment,  but  the  time  is  not  favorable."  Sir,  when  will  the  time  be 
favorable,  if  not  now  ?  Within  forty-four  years — since  the  formation  of 
the  present  constitution — not  less  than  five-and-twenty,  perhaps  thirty, 
constitutions  have  been  either  reorganized  or  adopted  anew.  Scarce 
one  State  of  the  "  old  thirteen"  but  has  changed  its  fundamental  law, 
and  some  among  them  twice  or  three  times.  Massachusetts,  old,  sober, 
conservative  Massachusetts,  where  change  and  progress  in  politics  are 
feared  as  the  breath  of  the  pestilence,  has  amended  hers.  Virginia  and 
Pennsylvania,  also,  have  done  likewise,  and  Virginia  is  convTilsed  now 
again,  by  the  efforts  of  her  reformers,  toward  yet  another  change.  Rhode 
Island,  slumbering  as  she  did,  for  nearly  two  centuries,  under  the  char- 
ter of  a  British  King,  has  waked  up  at  length,  and  framed  anew  her 
organic  law.  New  Jersey,  Louisiana,  Texas,  and,  more  recently  still, 
New  York,  have  each  reorganized  their  constitutions.  And  shall  Ohio, 
Young  Ohio,  ftill  behind  ?  Sir,  the  progress  of  constitutional  science 
(the  great  bulwark  of  liberty),  within  half  a  century,  has  amazed  the 
civilized  world.  Nothing  in  any  other  department  of  politics  has  equal- 
led it.  The  capacity,  once  doubted,  even  in  this  country,  of  the  people 
for  self-government,  in  its  most  expanded  limits,  has  been  demonstrated ; 

*  The  section  is  in  these  words : 

"Sec.  7. — No  person  shall  be  a  Senator  who  has  not  arrived  at  the  ago  of  thirty 
and  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States — shall  have  resided  two  years  in  the  county 
or  district,  immeiliately  preceding  the  election,  unless  he  shall  have  been  absent  on 
tlie  public  business  of  the  United  States,  or  of  this  State ;  or  shall  moreover  have 
paid  a  state  or  county  tax." 


ON    CONSTITUTIONAL    REFORM.  91 

while,   meantime,  the  tyrants  and   legitimists  of  the  old   world  have 
looked  on  with  blanched  cheek  and  cowering  eye  at  the  progress  of  the 
democratic  principle,  which,  scorning  to  tread  the  beaten  track  of  ordi- 
nary politics,  has  stricken  out  a  new  path,  crushing  to  the  ground  be- 
fore its  giant  strides,  all  the  sluggard  opposition  of  that  false  conser- 
vatism which  sits  like  the  unhappy  Triton  on  its  ftist-bound  rock,  and 
weeps  in  envy  and  malevolence  at  the  Genius  of  Improvement  going 
forth  as  the  strong  man  rejoicing  in  his  strength.      This  spirit  of  pro- 
gress, let  me  admonish  gentlemen,  it  is  vain  to  resist.      You  may  retard, 
but  you  cannot  arrest  it.      I  know  it  will  be  opposed,  and  that  all  the 
might  and  skill  of  that  conservatism  will  conspire  for  its  fall.      Men  are 
slow  to  give  up  what  they  delight  to  call  "  the  wisdom  of  their  ancestors." 
Sir,  there  is  a  wisdom  which  sometimes  becomes  madness.     But  we  do 
not  teach  forgetfuluess  of  the  lessons  of  the  past.     We  would  go  back  to 
that  fountain,  but  we  would  desire,  also,  to  grow  wise  from  experience, 
and  to  correct  the  errors  which  that  experience  points  out.     Experiment 
is  the  great  laboratory  of  politics ;  but  its  results  must  be  carried  into  ' 
practice  by  reforms,  or  they  are  of  no  value.     True,  sir,  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  soul-giaddening  march  of  improvement,  we  should  rejoice  to 
look  back  also  to  the  instructions  of  those  who  have  gone  before  us. 
1  belong,  indeed,  to  what  is  sometimes  sneeringly  called  the  "  progressive" 
school  of  politics.     I  am  proud  to  belong  to  it.     It  teaches  faith  in  man 
as  God  made  him.     Progression,  too,  is  a  law  of  our  race.     But  not 
that  progression  which  forgets  all  the  teachings  of  the  past,  and  spurns 
all  the  dangers  of  the  future.     The  true  law  of  progress,  if  I  understand 
it,  demands  not  so  much  the  originating  of  new  principles  in  politics,  as 
the  varied  application  of  the  old  and  established  principles  to  the  ever 
and  rapidly  changing  circumstances  which  distinguish  every  year  in  our 
history  from  the  years  which  have  preceded  it,  altering  our  policy  and 
conduct   of    affairs,    and   even   our   institutions,    accordingly  as   these 
changes  demand  it,  directed  throughout,  however,  by  the  same  great 
leading  principles  which  reason  and  prescription  alike  combine  to  make 
authoritative  and  venerable.     On  just  such  principles  would  I  desire  that 
the  great  reform  here  proposed,  should  be  conducted.      And  now,  too, 
we  have  all  that  wisdom  can  devise,  or  the  experience  of  our  own  or 
other  States  can  teach,  to  guide  us.      The  times  are  propitious.      Why 
then  delay  ?     Do  your  fear  the  introduction   of  party  into  this  great 
question  of  refoi'm  ?      Never  will  there  be  a  time  less  exposed  to  its  in- 
fluences.     This  proposition  will  be  submitted  to  the  people  at  the  fall 
election  of  '47,  at  a  season  when  there  will  be  neither  president,  gov- 
ernor, nor  members  of  Congress  to  elect,  and  when  no  disturbing  causes, 
therefore,  will  combine  to  trouble  the  pool  of  politics.  National  or  State, 
Nothing  of  so  generally  an  agitating  character,  as  to  arouse  even  the 


92  vallandigham's  speeches. 

ordinary  political  excitement  tlirougfhout  the  State,  will  or  can  be  brought 
before  the  people,  I  know  of  nothing  to  break  the  calm  of  that  elec- 
tion. And  if  the  people  should  decide  for  a  convention,  the  election  of 
its  members,  and  the  commencement  of  its  sessions,  must  both  take  place 
before  the  presidential  canvass  of  '48.  When  will  a  time  so  auspicious 
come  again?  Do  you  mean  to  wait  till  parties  shall  no  more  exist? 
Sir,  such  vain  imaginings  are  the  very  worst  sort  of  political  "  Millerism." 
That  day  will  never  come.  You  must  first  alter  man's  nature,  or,  striking 
down  the  spirit  of  liberty,  must  compel  the  uniformity  of  inexorable 
despotism.  Parties  will  always  exist  in  a  free  country,  and  it  is  the 
business  of  wise  men  not  to  attempt  to  eradicate,  but  to  regulate  and 
control  them.  But  why  shall  party  enter  at  all  into  this  question  ?  It 
is  a  question  for  the  whole  j^eople  of  the  State,  and  concerns  them,  not 
as  whigs,  or  as  democrats,  but  as  citizens.  Other  States  have  met  as 
one  people  in  this  great  matter  of  constitutional  reform.  In  Louisiana, 
where  parties  are  nearly  balanced,  but  three  thousand  votes  were  cast 
against  the  new  constitution  of  '44.  In  Iowa  and  Missouri  the  new 
constitutions  proposed  were  rejected — in  the  fonner  twice  rejected — 
though  the  party  whose  friends  liad  submitted  them,  was  largely  in  the 
majority.  Even  in  New  York,  where,  if  in  any  State,  partisan  influence 
was  most  to  have  been  expected — in  New  York,  where  the  despotism 
and  corruption  of  party  are  carried  as  far  surely  as  in  Ohio,  the  call 
for  a  convention  was  sustained  by  a  vote  of  two  hundred  and  thirteen 
thousand  to  thirty-three  thousand,  or  a  majority  of  not  less  than  one 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  votes,  while  the  constitution  which  that 
convention  submitted  received  a  majority  of  fifty  thousand  at  an  election 
where  a  whig  Governor  and  a  democratic  Lieutenant-Governor  were 
each  elected  by  about  ten  thousand  majority.  Why,  sir,  even  in  the 
convention  of  Pennsylvania  too — old  democratic  Pennsylvania — I  mean 
the  Pennsylvania  of  '38,  not  '46 — John  Sergeant  was  chosen  President. 
And  is  it  in  Ohio  alone  that  the  thraldom  of  party  is  so  monstrous  that 
a  convention  is  not  to  be  called,  and  not  even  the  people  consulted 
whether  they  desire  it,  for  fear  that  the  influence  of  partisan  politics  will 
coiTupt  its  delibt-rations  ?  Sir,  I  was  born  in  Ohio,  and  I  will  never 
consent  to  brand  upon  her  brow  the  infamy  of  such  an  imputation. 
Your  best  and  purest  men  will  find  seats  in  tliis  convention,  and  they 
will  vote  and  speak  as  honest  men  and  as  patriots. 

But  if  the  fear  of  party  is  to  defeat  this  measure,  when  will  it  pass  ? 
Now  I  submit  it  to  gentlemen  as  to  members  earnest  in  their  desire  to 
vote  for  the  best  interests  of  the  people  ; — if  this  bill  is  never  to  pass — 
if  the  constitution  needs  no  amending,  and  is  never  to  be  amended — 
this  objection  is  at  least  consistent.  But  if  you  look  forward  to  a  time 
when  the  constitution  of  this  State  is  to  undergo  the  process  of  revision, 


ON    CONSTITUTIO]S"AL   KEFORM.  93 

then  let  us  hear  no  more  of  party,  for  its  corrupting  influence  will  be 
far  greater  and  more  perilous  half  a  century  hence,  than  in  this  com- 
paratively healthy  age  of  the  commonwealth — certainly  as  great  in 
five  years  or  ten  as  at  this  day.  Sir,  I  protest  earnestly  against  the 
defeat,  of  this  measure  by  the  votes  of  those  who,  admitting  the  neces- 
sity of  a  change  in  our  constitution,  desire  and  expect  to  see  it  earned 
out  at  some  future  day.  What !  object  to  this  bill  now,  and  vote  against 
it  because  you  are  afraid  that  party  corruption  will  steal  into  the  con- 
vention and  fasten  upon  the  State  a  constitution  worse  than  the  present, 
and  yet  think  to  call  just  such  convention,  for  just  the  same  purpose,  at 
some  other  time — as  if  party  spirit  and  party  distinctions  were  at  their 
last  gasp  and  never  more  to  be  heard  of !  Sir,  I  repeat  it :  that  day 
will  never  dawn.  I  have  no  faith,  not  the  slightest,  in  the  coming  of  a 
political  millenium  when  the  lion  and  the  lamb  shall  lie  down  together. 
Such  visions  are  just  "  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of."  The  "  moon- 
shine's watery  beams"  have  ten  times  the  substance  of  such  shadows. 
But  why  fear  a  worse  constitution  ?  The  people  are  first  to  resolve 
whether  they  will  have  a  convention.  They  are  then  to  elect  the  mem- 
bers of  that  convention,  and  finally  the  constitution  itself  is  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  them  for  their  approval  or  rejection.  The  people  are  to  decide 
that  question  also.  And  how  and  whence  comes  this  fear  of  a  worse 
constitution,  but  from  secret  distrust  in  their  virtue  and  intelligence  ? 

Again  :  I  have  heard  it  said,  "  New  York  has  just  adopted  a  new 
constitution  ;  let  us  wait  till  we  see  how  it  works."  What  kind  of  an 
argument  is  this  ?  This  bill  does  not  propose  to  adopt  the  New  York 
constitution,  or  any  other  already  formed.  What  has  it  or  what  have 
they  to  do  with  the  question  of  a  convention  in  Ohio,  that  we  shall 
wait  till  they  have  been  tried  ?  Their  principles  are  not  new  ;  and  if 
they  were,  how  know  you  that  they  would  be  introduced  into  ours  ;  or 
if  they  were  introduced  with  the  sanction  of  the  people,  who  should 
say  aught  against  it  ?  Wait  ?  And  how  long  ?  One,  two,  five  years  ? 
How  long  shall  the  test  be  ?  Why,  sir,  by  that  time  Virginia  shall 
have  reorganized  her  constitution,  and  then  we  shall  be  told,  "  wait  till 
she  has  tried  how  it  works."  Every  year  some  new  constitution  is 
framed,  and  thus  this  objection  may  be  forever  applied. 

When  the  proposition  similar  to  this,  Mr,  Speaker,  was  under  debate, 
at  the  last  session,  the  argument  most  urged  against  it,  and  that  which 
I  feel  and  know  will  go  farther  toward  the  defeat  of  this  bill  than  all 
others  put  together,  was  the  fear  of  untried  and  dangerous  innovations. 
The  dire  spirit  of  radicalism.,  they  told  us,  and  some  now  will  tell  us,  is 
abroad  in  its  rage,  and  threatens,  like  the  Apostles  of  old,  to  turn  the 
world  upside  down.  Sir,  this  fear  of  innovation,  or  rather  of  progress, 
is  a  morbid  affection  to  be  dealt  with  as  other  hypochondriac  diseases. 


94  vallandigham's  speeches. 

And  I  would  lament  beyond  the  power  of  words  to  express,  that  its  in- 
fluence should  be  allowed  to  defeat  this  measure.     But  how  comes  such 
an  objection  to  be  urged  by  those  among  the  majority  of  this  House  ? 
Have  not  the  Avhig  party  sworn  upon  the  horns  of  the  altar,  eternal  hos- 
tility to  all  such  innovations  as  are  thus  feared  and  abhorred,  and  does 
not  that  party  boast  of  a  permanent  majority  in  this  State  reckoned  by 
thousands  ?      Have  we  not  heard  it  proclaimed  times  out  of  number, 
that  Ohio  is  unalterably  a  whig  State  ?     Now,  sir,  this  question  must 
first  be  submitted  to  the  people ;  and  upon  the  new  constitution  also 
they  must  decide.     And  think  you,  sir,  the  people,  a  large  majority  of 
whom  are  claimed  to  be  whigs — conservative  whigs,  and  opposed  to  all 
innovations  and  radicalism,  to  hard  money  and  legislative  supremacy 
over  "  vested  rights,"  so  called — will  first  demand  such  convention,  thus 
exposed  to  such  dangers,  then  elect  a  majority  of  members  to  serve  in 
it,  who  will  propose  a  radical,  impracticable  constitution  :    and  finally, 
support  that  constitution  by  their  free  suflfrages  ?     No,  sir,  let  gentle- 
men be  consistent.     If  in  truth  you  have' confidence  in  your  majority, 
vote  for  this  bill.     It  is  we,  we  who  should  fear,  if  any.     But  we  are  not 
afraid  to  trust  this  question  to  the  people  of  Ohio.     Ours  is  a  U\dng 
faith  in  tlieir  virtue  and  intelligence.     We  believe,  and  mean  this  day 
to  prove  the  sincerity  of  that  belief  by  our  votes,  that  they  will  choose 
just  such  a  convention  and  such  a  constitution  as  will  best  promote  the 
true  principles  of  free  government,  and  the  real  interests  of  the  State. 
Afraid  !  and  of  whom  and  what  ?     Sir,  this  bill  proposes  no  more — and 
I  desire  to  write  it  upon  the  hearts  of  the  members  of  this  House,  as  with 
a  pen  of  iron — no  more  than  simply  to  submit  to  the  people,  whether 
they  desire  a  convention  to  amend  or  change  the  constitution.     It  calls 
no  such  convention.     We  have  no  authority  to  call  it.     And  if  the  peo- 
ple of  this  State  do  not  desire  it,  they  will  vote  this  proposition  down, 
and  that,  too,  with  little  trouble  and  at  no  expense.     If  they  mean  to 
demand  a  convention,  they  will  signify  that  demand  through  the  l)allot- 
box — that  "  weapon  surer  set,  and  better  than  the  bayonet."     And  who 
shall  interpose  between  them  and  their  will  ?     Shall  the  agent  become 
greater  than  his  principal,  or  the  creature  dictate  control  to  the  creator  ? 
I  repeat  it,  this  bill  does  not  propose  to  call  a  convention.     Look  at  its 
title — "  A  bill  to  provide  for  ascertainivg  the  will  of  the  peojile  of  this 
State,  upon  the  question  of  calUng  a  convention  to  ainend  or  change  the 
Constitution  of  the  samey     That,  sir,  is  its  object-^its  sole  object.     And 
who  shall  dare  rise  up  and  say,  "  We  care  .not  to  know  the  will  of  the 
people  upon  this  question  ?     We  are  opposed  to  a  convention  :  that  is 
enouo-h.      We  are  afraid  of  it,  and  their  voice  shall  not  be  heard."     Yet 
such,  in  effect,  will  be  the  language  of  him  who  shall  this  day  record 
his  vote  against  the  measure. 


ON   CONSTITUTIONAL    REFOEM.  95 

But  there  are  those  who,  admitting  in  all  their  force  the  defects  of 
the  present  constitutiqn,  the  necessity  of  amendment,  the  fitness  of  the 
time,  the  nature  of  this  proposition,  the  right  of  the  people  to  decide 
upon  it,  the  propriety  of  submitting  it  to  their  decision,  and  all  the 
other  great  considerations,  in  view  of  which  I  have  plead  with  this 
House  for  the  passage  of  this  bill,  yet  folding  their  hands  to  sleep,  tell 
us  in  sluggard  accent,  "  better  wait  a  little  longer."     Wait !     Why,  and 
for  Avhat  ?     Sir,  I  abhor  the  word.     "  Ilowlings  attend  it."     It  is  a  bad 
word,  and  sounds  dismally  of  the  ruin  of  great  enterprises.     It  smacks 
of  death,  all  over  of  death.     It  has  the  hollow  moan  of  the  sepulchre  of 
all  good,  about  it.     There  is  ruin  in  its  accent.     "  Wait  a  little,"  said 
the  First  Charles  when  the  Commons  of  England  knocked  loud  at  the 
palace,  and  demanded  reform  of  abuses  and  redress  of  grievances — and 
the  storm  of  civil  uproar  bore  him  headlong  to  the  scaffold.     "Wait  a 
little,"  said  the  Second  James,  to  the  enraged  Protestants  of  his  king- 
dom, crying  out  for  security  to  their  religious  rights  and  form  of  wor- 
ship— and  the  throne  rotted  away  from  under  him,  and  he  died  miser- 
ably an  exiled  King.      "  Wait  a  little,"  said  Louis  of  France,  as  the 
cloud  of  popular  discontent  arose  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand  ; — and 
it  began  to  blacken  the  horizon.     "  Give  us  our  rights  and  protect  us 
against  the  monstrous  wrongs  perpetrated  upon  us,"  said  the  people,  as 
they  thundered  at  the  gates  of  the  Bastile.     "  Wait  a  little,"  murmured 
the  King ; — and  the  storms  came,  and  hail-stones,  and  coals  of  fiery  in- 
dignation from  the  people,  swept  over  France  ;    and  throne,  and  king, 
and  government,  and  nobles,,  all  went  down  in  blood,  before  the  whirl- 
wind of  revolution.      "  Wait  a  little  !"     There  is  danger  in  the  words. 
Sir,  the  people  of  this  State  demand  this  reform,  and  will  ere  long  come 
thundering  about  this  capitol,  also,  if  denied.     The  present  constitution 
was  never  submitted  to  them  for  their  approval,  and  exists  only  by  con- 
nivance.    True,  it  points  out  a  mode  of  amendment,  and  provides  for 
submitting  that  question  to  the  people,  as  we  now  demand  at  the  hands 
of  this  House,  and  in  their  name,  that  it  may  be  done.     But  I  warn 
gentlemen  not  to  carry  refusal  and  delay  too  far.      Look  to  Rhode 
Island.     Though  her  cause  fell  into  unsafe  hands  Avho  betrayed  it,  yet, 
reckon  not,  I  beg  you,  too  largely  upon  its  failure.     The  people  of  Ohio 
will  not  be  hurried  rashly  into  a  mode  of  reform  other  than  that  pre- 
scribed by  even  the  present  constitution,  to  which  they  have  yielded  no 
more  than  a  tacit  assent.     Nor  yet,  be  assured,  will  they  slumber  forever 
upon  those  rights  which  constitutions  can  neither  give  nor  take  away. 
But  this  constitution  has  declared  in  so  many  words,  the  rights  of  the 
people  to  be  above  the  authority  of  their  representatives,  and  recognized 
their  inalienable  and  full  power  at  all  times  over  their  forms  of  govern- 
ment.    And  though  we  should  forget,  yet  they  will  remember  it.     Let 


96  VALLA^'DIGHAM'S    SPEECHES. 

me  remind  gentlemen  of  this  provision  of  our  bill  of  riglits — there  is 
fearful  signifieancy  in  it.     I  read  from  the  constitution  : 

"  That  the  general,  great,  and  essential  principle  of  liberty  and  free  government 
may  be  recognized  and  forever  unalterably  established,  we  declare, 

"Sec.  1.  That  all  men  are  born  equally  free  and  independent,  and  have  certain 
natural,  inherent,  and  inalienable  rights,  amongst  which  are  the  enjoying  and  de- 
fending life  and  liberty,  acquiring,  possessing,  and  protecting  property,  and  pursu- 
ing and  obtaining  happiness  and  safety ;  and  every  free  republican  government, 
being  founded  on  their  (the  people's)  sole  authority,  and  organized  for  the  great 
purpose  of  protecting  their  rights  and  liberties,  and  securing  their  independence ; 
to  effect  these  ends  they  have  at  all  times  a  complete  power  to  alter,  re- 
form, AM)  ABOLISH  THEIR  GOVERNMENT  WHENEVER  THEY  MAY  DEEM  IT  NECES- 
SARY." 

Xow,  sir,  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  this  provision,  comprehen- 
sive and  emphatic  as  its  purport  and  language  are,  authorizes  a  change 
of  the  constitution,  by  the  people  of  this  State  in  their  unorganized  ca- 
pacity, and  in  a  mode  other  than  that  pointed  out  by  the  instrument 
itself.  But  with  this  provision  in  it,  and  with  the  fact  palpable,  that 
the  constitution  never  received  the  direct  approval  of  the  people,  and  is 
not  their  constitution  except  by  acquiescence,  I  will  not  answer  for  doc- 
trines which  may  be  taught,  and  movements  which  may  be  made,  if 
this  Assembly  shall  persist  in  obstinate  refusal  to  carry  out  the  intent  of 
that  constitution,  and  the  will  of  the  people.  It  is  the  part  of  wisdom 
not  to  press  measures  like  this  to  extremes.  Sir,  this  bill  must  and  will 
some  time  or  other  become  a  law.  You  may  vote  it  down  now.  You 
may  look  the  people  in  the  face  and  say  to  them,  "  We  care  not  to 
know  your  will  upon  this  question,  for  we  are  adverse  to  it."  But  be 
assured,  be  assured,  that  sooner  or  later,  and  in  a  day  perhaps  when  you 
think  not  of,  this  bill  will  pass.  If  passed  now,  your  constitution  will 
be  framed  in  the  midst  of  calm,  by  the  sober  second  thought  of  a  con- 
vention of  cool-headed  men  and  patriots,  and  passed  upon  by  a  people 
undisturbed  by  agitation.  But  if  this  Legislature  shall  wait,  and  wait, 
and  wait,  till  with  safety  they  can  wait  no  longer — till  forced  by  the 
thunderings  and  knockings  of  the  people,  which  will  not  be  denied; 
know  well,  your  constitution  will  be  "  born  in  bitterness  and  nurtured 
in  convulsion."  For  let  me  admonish  this  House,  in  the  crooked  but 
significant  Anglo-Saxon  tongue  of  Carlyle,  that  here,  too,  as  in  France, 
if  rulers  and  representatives  refuse  the  timely  correction  of  the  abuses, 
errors,  and  defects  of  Government,  "  something  will  some  day  do 
ITSELF  IN  A  WAY  TO  PLEASE  NOBODY."  If,  then,  iu  truth,  you  are  afraid 
of  the  spirit  of  an  impracticable  radicalism — if  really  you  fear  a  consti- 
tution worse  than  the  present,  wait  not,  I  beseech  you,  till  the  whirl- 
wind and  the  storm  of  popular  commotion  shall  sweep  over  the  State ; 
but  pass  this  bill  now — to-day,  and  claim  to  yourselves  the  honor  and 


HISTORY   OF   THE    ABOLITION   MOYEilEXT.  C7 

gratitude  of  other  times,  and  make  this  session  memorable,  and  this  day 
lone:  to  be  venerated  in  the  State  of  Ohio.  Let  no  man  ask  us  to  wait 
longer.  Pass  this  bill ;  be  not  afraid  of  the  people.  Ti-ust  to  them  the 
decision  of  this  question,  and  proclaim  by  your  v^otes  this  day,  the  sin- 
cerity of  your  faith  in  their  virtue  and  intelligence  to  fi-ame  a  constitu- 
tion worthy  of  this  great  commonwealth. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  ABOLITIOX  MOVEMENT. 

Speech  delivered  at  a  Democratic  Meeting  held  in  Dayton,  Ohio,  Octo- 
ber 29,  1855. 

Fait  Jkzc  sapientia  qvondam, 
Publica  privaiis  secernere,  sacra  prufanis.  Horace. 

uEternas  opes  esse  Romanas  nisi  inter  semet  ipsi  seditionihus  sceviant.  Id  unum 
venenum,  earn  labem  civitatibxis  opulentis  repertam,  tit  magna  imperia  mortalta  essenL 

LlVT. 

Then  only  both  Commonwealth  and  Religion  will  at  length,  if  ever,  flourish  in 
Christendom,  when  either  they  who  govern,  discern  between  civil  and  religious 
(religion  and  politics) :  or  they  only  who  so  discern,  shall  be  admitted  to  govern. 
Till  then  nothing  but  troubles,  persecutions,  commotions,  can  be  expected,  tlie  in- 
ward decay  of  true  religion  among  ourselves,  and  the  utter  overthrow,  at  last,  by 
a  common  enemy.  Miltox.* 

After  some  preliminary  remarks,  explanatory  of  the  object  of  the 
meeting,  and  the  reasons  why  it  was  proper  and  expedient  thus  early  ta 
discuss  before  the  people  the  great  question  which  must  make  up  the 
chief  issue  in  the  campaign  of  1856,  and  to  organize  preparatory  there- 
to, Mr.  Vallaxdigham  said  that  he  proposed  as  the  text  or  "  rubric"  of 
what  he  had  to  say  to-night,  the  following  inquiries : 

Why  has  the  Democratic  Party  suffered  defeat  in  Ohio  ?     Why 

IS  IT  so  GREATLY    DISORGANIZED?       WhaT  WILL    RESTORE    IT  TO    SOUND 


NESS  ? 

These,  Mr.  President,  are  grave  questions.  I  propose  to  answer  them 
plainly — boldly — not  as  a  partisan,  but  as  a  patriot ;  and  for  the  opinions 
which  I  shall  this  night  avow,  I  alone  am  responsible.  I  speak  not  to 
please,  but  to  instruct,  to  warn,  to  arouse,  and,  if  it  be  not  presumption, 
to  save,  while  to  be  saved  is  yet  possible.  The  time  for  plain  Anglo- 
Saxon  out-speaking  is  come.     Let  us  hear  no  more  the  lullaby  of  peace, 

*  These  mottoes  were  prefixed  to  the  pamphlet  edition  of  the  Speech,  when  first 
published  in  1855. 


98  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

when  there  is  no  peace ;  but  rather  the  sharp  clang  of  the  trumpet  stir- 
ring to  battle ;  at  least,  the  alarm-bell  in  the  night,  when  the  house  is  on 
fire  over  our  heads.  Or,  better  still,  give  us  warning  while  the  incen- 
diary is  yet  steahng,  "  with  whispering  and  most  guilty  diligence,"  and 
flaming  torch,  toward  our  dwelling,  that  we  may  be  ready  and  armed 
against  his  approach. 

First,  then :  The  Democratic  party  of  Ohio  suffered  defeat  because  it 
became  disorganized ;  and  it  was  disorganized  because  it  held  ni^t,  in  all 
things,  to  sound  doctrine,  vigorous  discipline,  and  to  true  and  good  men. 
It  began  to  tamper  with  heresy  and  with  unsoimd  men — to  look  after 
policy,  falsely  so  called,  and  forget  sometimes  the  true  and  honest  ;  not 
mindful,  with  Jackson,  that  the  right  is  always  expedient — at  least,  that 
the  wronor  never  is ;  and  that  an  in^-ifjoratinof  defeat  is  ever  better  than 
a  triumph  which  leaves  the  victor  weaker  than  the  conquered.  This  is 
a  law  of  nature,  gentlemen,  and  we  may  claim  no  immunity  from  pun- 
ishment for  its  infraction.  I  speak  of  the  Democratic  party  of  Ohio, 
because  we  are  our  own  masters,  and  have  a  work  of  our  own  to  per- 
fonn.  But  the  evil,  in  part,  lies  outside  the  State.  It  infects  the  whole 
party  of  the  Union,  as  such.  It  ascends  into  high  places,  and  sits  down 
hard  bv  the  throne.  But  I  affect  the  wise  caution  of  Sallust,  remem- 
beriTig  that  concerning  Carthage  it  is  better  to  be  silent,  than  speak-  too 
little.  Yet  we,  as  members,  must  partake  of  the  weakness  and  enerva- 
tion of  other  parts  of  the  system ;  and  atrophy  is  quite  as  fatal,  though 
it  may  not  be  so  speedy,  as  corruption  and  gangrene. 

The  inquiries,  gentlemen,  which  I  have  proposed,  assume  the  truth 
of  the  facts  which  they  imply.  Are  they  not  true?  That  we  have 
been  defeated,  is  now  l^ecome  history.  But  defeat  did  not  disorganize 
ns.  Had  not  discipline  first  been  lost,  we  could  not  have  been  over- 
powered. I  know,  indeed,  that  some  have  affirmed  that  we,  too,  are  an 
effete  party,  ready  to  be  dissolved  and  pass  away.  It  is  not  so.  Disso-- 
lution  and  disorganization  are  wholly  different  things.  The  Democratic 
party  is  not  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches,  organized  for  a  transient 
purpose,  and  thrown  bap-hazard  together,  in  undistinguishable  mass, 
without  form,  consistency,  or  proportion,  by  some  sudden  and  temporary 
pressure,  and  passing  away  with  the  occasion  which  gave  it  being ;  or 
catching,  for  a  renewed,  but  yet  more  ephemeral  existence,  at  each  flit- 
ting exigency,  as  it  arises  in  the  State ;  moulding  itself  to  the  fonn  of 
every  popular  humor,  and  seeking  to  fill  its  sails  with  every  new  wind 
of  doctrine,  as  it  passes,  cither  in  zephyr  or  tempest,  over  the  waves  of 
public  caprice — born  and  dying  with  the  breath  which  made  it.  Xo ; 
the  Democratic  party  is  founded  upon  prin'ciples  which  never  die : 
hence  it  is  itself  immortal.  It  may  alter  its  forms ;  it  must  change  its 
measures — for,  as  in  principle  it  is  essentially  conservative,  so  in  policy 


HISTOEY    OF   THE    ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  99 

it  is  the  party  of  true  progress — its  individual  members  and  its  leading 
spirits,  its  representative  men,  cannot  remain  the  same.  But  wherever 
there  is  a  people  wholly  or  partially  free,  there  will  be  a  Democratic 
party  more  or  less  developed  and  organized.  But  no  party,  gentlemen, 
is  at  all  times  equally  pure  and  true  to  principle  and  its  mission.  And 
whenever  the  Democratic  party  forgets  these,  it  loses  its  cementing  and 
power-bestowing  element ;  it  waxes  weak,  is  disorganized,  is  defeated — 
till,  purging  itself  of  its  impurities,  and  falling  back  and  rallying  within 
its  impregnable  intrenchments  of  original  and  eternal  principles,  it  re- 
turns, like  "  eagle  lately  bathed,"  ■v\-ith  irresistible  might  and  majesty,  to 
the  conflict,  full  of  hope,  and  confident  in -victory.  Sir,  it  is  this  recu- 
perative power — this  vis  medicatrix — which  distinguishes  the  Democratic 
party  from  every  other ;  and  it  owes  this  wholly  to  its  conservative  ele- 
ment, FIXED  POLITICAL  PRINCIPLES.  I  Say  political  principles — principles 
peculiarly  belonging  to  government^ — because  it  is  a  political  party, 
and  must  be  judged  according  to  its  nature  and  constitution.  Recog- 
nizing, in  their  fullest  extent,  the  imperative  obligations  of  personal  re- 
ligion and  morality  upon  its  members,  and  also  that,  in  its  aggregate 
being,  it  dare  not  violate  the  principles  of  either,  it  is  yet  neither  a 
Church  nor  a  lyceum.  It  is  no  part  of  its  mission  to  set  itself  up  as  an 
expounder  of  ethical  or  divine  tinith.  Still  less  is  it  a  mere  philanthro- 
pic or  eleemosynary  institution.  All  these  are  great  and  noble,  each 
within  its  peculiar  province,  but  they  form  no  part  of  the  immediate 
business  and  end  of  the  Democratic  party.  And  it  is  because  that  party 
sometimes  will  forget  that  it  is  the  first  and  highest  duty  of  its  mission 
to  be  the  depositary  of  immutable  political  principles,  and  steps  aside 
after  the  dreams  and  visions  of  a  false  and  fanatical  progress — some- 
times poUtical,  commonly  philanthropic  or  moral — that  it  ceases  to  be 
powerful  and  victorious ;  for  God  has  ordained  that  truth  shall  ever,  in 
the  end,  be  vindicated,  and  error  chastised. 

Forgetting  the  true  province  of  a  political  party,  the  Democracy  of 
France  and  Germany  has  always  failed,  and  ever  must  fail.  It  aims  at 
too  much.  It  invokes  government  to  regenerate  man,  and  set  him  free 
from  the  taint  and  the  evils  of  sin  and  suffering ;  it  seeks  to  control  the 
domestic,  social,  individual,  moral,  and  spiritual  relations  of  man  ;  it 
ignores  or  usurps  the  place  of  the  fireside,  the  Church,  and  the  lyceum ; 
and,  emulating  the  folly  of  Icarus,  and  spreading  its  wings  for  a  too  lofty 
flight  into  upper  air,  it  has  melted  like  wax  before  the  sun.  Indirectly 
indeed,  government  will  always,  sir,  affect  more  or  less,  all  these  rela- 
tions for  good  or  evil.  But  departing  from  its  appointed  orbit,  con- 
fusion, not  less  surely  or  disastrously,  must  follow,  than  from  a  like 
departure  by  the  heavenly  bodies  from  their  fixed  laws  of  motion.  And, 
indeed,  the  greater,  and  by  far  the  gravest  part  of  the  errors  of  Democ- 


r 


100  vallandigham's  speeches. 

racy  everywhere,  are  to  be  traced  directly  to  neglect  or  infraction  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  its  constitution — that  man  is  to  be  considered 
and  dealt  with  by  government  strictly  in  reference  to  his  relations  as  a 
political  being. 

These  reflections,  Mr.  President,  naturally  lead  me  to  the  first  inquiry  : 
Personal  dissension ;  a  turning  aside  after  mere  temporary  and  mis- 
called expediency ;  a  faith  in  and  following  after  weak,  or  uncertain,  or 
selfish,  or  heretical  men ;  neglect  of  party  tone  and  discipline  as  essen- 
tial to  the  morale,  and  hence  the  success  of  a  party,  as  of  an  army,  and 
just  3s  legitimate ;  these,  and  the  like  minor  causes  of  disorganization 
and  defeat,  I  pass  over.  They  are  incident  to  all  parties,  and,  although, 
never  to  be  too  lightly  estimated,  yet  rarely  occasion  lasting  or  very  se- 
rious detriment.  Commonly,  indeed,  sir,  they  are  but  the  diagnostic, 
or  visible  development  of  an  evil  which  lies  deeper — ^just  as  boils  and 
blotches  upon  the  surface  of  the  body  show  that  the  system  is  tainted 
and  distempered  within.  Neither  do  I  pause,  gentlemen,  to  consider 
how  far  the  final  inauguration  of  the  grand  scheme  of  domestic  policy, 
which  the  Democratic  party  so  many  yeai's  struggled  for,  and  the  conse- 
quent prostration  and  dissolution  of  the  Whig  party,  have  contributed 
to  the  loss  of  vigilance  and  discipline ;  since  an  organization  healthy  in 
all  other  things  must  soon  recover  its  wonted  tone  and  soundness.  Sir, 
the  Democratic  party  has  principle  to  fall  back  upon ;  and  it  has,  too,  a 
trust  to  execute,  not  less  sacred,  and  almost  as  difficult  as  its  first  work. 
It  is  its  business  to  preserve  and  keep  pure  and  incoiTupt  that  which  it 
has  established.  And  this,  along  with  the  new  political  questions  which, 
in  the  world's  progress,  from  day  to  day  spring  up,  will  give  us  labor 
enough,  and  sweat  enough,  without  a  wild  foray  into  the  province  of  the 
benevolent  association,  the  lyceum,  or  the  Church ;  to  return  thence 
laden,  not  with  the  precious  things,  the  incense,  and  the  vessels  of  silver 
and  gold  from  off"  the  altar,  but  the  rubbish  and  the  offal — the  bigotries, 
the  intolerance,  the  hypocrisies,  the  persecuting  spirit,  and  whatever  else 
of  unmixed  evil  has  crept,  through  corruption,  into  the  outer  or  the 
inner  courts  of  the  sanctuary. 

I  know,  indeed,  gentlemen,  that  every  political  party  is  more  or  less 
directly  aff'ected,  as  by  a  sort  of  magnetism,  by  all  great  public  move- 
ments upon  any  subject;  and  it  is  one  of  the  peculiar  evils  of  a  democ- 
racy, that  every  question  of  absorbing,  though  never  so  transient 
interest — moral,  social,  religious,  scientific,  no  matter  what — assumes, 
sooner  or  later,  a  political  shape  and  hue,  and  enters  into  the  election 
contests  and  legislation  of  the  country.  For  many  years,  nevertheless, 
sir,  questions  not  strictly  political  exerted  but  small  influence  upon  par- 
ties in  the  United  States.  The  memorable  controversies  which  pre- 
ceded the  American  Revolution,  and  which  developed  and  disciplined 


HISTORY    OF   THE    ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  101 

the  oTcat  abilities  of  the  giants  of  those  days — founded,  indeed,  as  all 
must  be,  upon  abstract  principles  drawn  from  the  nature  of  man  con- 
sidered in  his  relation  to  government — were  yet  strictly  legal  and  politi- 
cal. The  men  of  that  day  were  not  cold  metaphysicians,  nor  wicked 
or  mischievous  enthusiasts — else  we  had  been  subjects  of  Great  Britain 
to  this  day.  Practical  men,  they  dealt  with  the  subject  as  a  practical 
question ;  and  deducing  the  right  of  revolution^  the  right  to  institute, 
alter,  or  abolish  government^  from  the  "  inalienable  rights  of  man,"  the 
American  Congress  summed  up  a  long  catalogue  of  injuries  and  usurpa- 
tions wholly  political^  as  impelling  to  the  separation,  and  struck  out  of 
the  original  draught  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  eloquent, 
but  then  mistimed,  declamation  of  Jefferson  against  the  Aftican  slave- 
trade.  Sir,  it  did  not  occur  to  even  the  Hancocks  and  the  Adamses  of 
the  New  England  of  that  day  that  the  national  sins  and  immoralities 
of  Great  Britain  could  form  the  appropriate  theme  of  a  great  state 
paper,  and  supply  to  a  legislative  assembly  the  most  potent  arguments 
wherewith  to  justify  and  defend  before  the  world  a  momentous  political 
revolution.  Di'scoveries  such  as  these  are,  belong  to  the  patriots  and 
wise  men — the  Sewards,  the  Sumners,  the  Hales,  and  the  Chases — of  a 
later  and  more  enlightened  age. 

Our  ancestors  went  to  war,  indeed,  about  a  preamble  and  a  prin- 
ciple :  but  these  were  political — the  right  of  the  British  Parliament  to 
tax  America,  And  they  did  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  war  was 
humane  and  consistent  with  man's  notion  of  the  Gospel  of  Peace. 
Their  political  rights  w^ere  invaded,  and  they  took  up  arms  to  repel  the 
aggression.  Nor  did  they,  sir,  in  the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  pharisaic 
rabbins  and  sophisters  of  '55,  ask  of  each  other  whether,  morally  or 
piously,  the  citizens  of  the  several  Colonies  were  worthy  of  fellowship. 
They  were  resolved  to  form  a  political  union,  so  as  to  establish  jus- 
tice and  to  secure  domestic  tranquillity,  the  common  defence,  the  gene- 
ral welfare,  and  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and  posterity. 
And  the  Catholic  of  Maryland  and  Huguenot  of  Carolina,  the  Puritan 
Roundhead  of  New  England  and  the  Cavalier  of  Virginia — the  slavery- 
hating,  though  sometimes  slave-trading,  saint  of  Boston  and  the  slave- 
holding  sinner  of  Savannah — Washington  and  Adams,  Rutledofe  and 
Sherman,  Madison  and  Franklin,  Pinckney  and  Ellsworth,  aU  joined 
hands  in  holy  brotherhood  to  ordain  a  Constitution  which,  silent  about 
temperance,  forbade  religious  tests  and  establishments,  and  provided  for 
the  extradition  of  fugitive  slaves* 

The  questions  which  engaged  the  great  minds  of  Washington  and 
the   men   who    composed   his    cabinets   were,    also,    purely    political. 

♦  Both  these  provisions  were  carried  unanimously,  without  debate  and  without 
vote.— 3  Mad.  Pap.,  1366,  1447,  1456,  1468. 


102  VALLAiN'DIGHAM's    SPEECHES. 

**  WTiiskei/,"  indeed,  sir,  played  once  an  important  part  in  tlic  drama, 
threatening  even  civil  war;  but  it  was  as  the  creature  of  the  tax- 
gatherer,  not  the  theme  of  the  philanthropist  or  the  ecclesiastic.  Even 
the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws  of  the  succeeding  administration — re- 
nascent now  by  a  sort  of  Pythagorean  metempsychosis,  in  the  form  of  a 
secret,  oath-bound  conspiracy — were  defended  then  solely  on  political 
grounds.  "  The  principles  of '93,"  which,  at  that  time,  convulsed  the 
country  in  the  struggle  for  their  predominance,  were,  indeed,  abstrac- 
tions, though  of  infinite  practical  value — but  they  were  constitutional 
and  political  abstractions.  Equally  is  it  true  that  all  the  capital  meas- 
ures, in  every  administration,  from  '98  to  1828,  were  of  a  kindred  char- 
acter, except  only  the  Missouri  Question,  that  "fire-bell  in  the  night" 
which  filled  Jefferson  with  alarm  and  despair.  But  this  was  transient 
in  itself;  though  it  left  its  slumbering  and  treacherous  ashes  to  kindle 
a  flame,  not  many  years  later,  which  threatens  to  consume  this  Union 
with  fire  unquenchable. 

But  within  no  period  of  our  history,  gentlemen,  were  so  many  and 
such  grave  political  questions  the  subject  of  vehement, 'and  sometimes 
exasperated  discussion,  as  during  the  administrations  of  Jackson  and 
his  successor,  continuing  down,  many  of  them,  to  1847.  Among  these 
I  name  Internal  Improvements,  the  Protective  System,  the  Public 
Lands,  Nullification,  the  Removal  of  the  Indians,  the  United  States 
Bank,  the  Removal  of  the  Deposits,  Removals  from  Office,  the  French 
Indemnity,  the  Expunging  Resolutions,  the  Specie  Circular,  Executive 
Patronage,  the  Independent  Treasury,  Distribution,  the  Veto  Power, 
and  their  cognate  subjects.  Never  were  greater  questions  presented. 
Never  was  greater  intellect  or  more  abundant  learning  and  ingenuity 
brought  into  the  discussion  of  any  subjects.  And  never,  be  it  remem- 
bered, was  the  Democratic  party  so  powerful.  It  was  the  power  and 
majesty  of  principle  and  truth,  working  out  their  development  through 
machinery  obedient  to  its  constitution  and  nature.  True,  Andrew 
Jackson  was  then  at  the  head  of  the  party,  and  his  name  and  his  will, 
moving  all  things  with  a  nod,  were  a  tower  of  strength.  But  an 
hundred  Jacksons  could  not  have  upheld  a  party  one  day  which  had 
been  false  to  its  mission. 

Withig  this  period,  indeed,  Anti-masonry  rose,  flourished,  and  died ; 
the  first,  in  the  United  States,  of  a  long  line  of  third  parties — the 
tertium  quid  of  political  sophisters — based  upon  but  one  tenet,  and  de- 
voted to  a  single  purpose.  But  even  in  this,  the  professed  principle 
was  solely  political. 

Following  the  great  questions  of  the  Jackson  era,  came  the  Annex- 
ation of  Texas,  the  Oregon  question,  and  the  Mexican  War ;  during 
or  succeeding  which,  that  pestilent  and  execrable  sectional  controversy, 


HISTORY    OF   THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMEjNfT.  103 

RespubUccc  portentum  ac  p>cene  funus^  was  developed  and  nurtured  to  its 
present  perilous  magnitude. 

Here,  gentlemen,  a  new  epoch  begins  in  our  political  history.  A 
new  order  of  issues,  and  new  party  mechanism  are  introduced.  At 
this  point,  therefore,  let  us  turn  back  and  trace  briefly  the  origin  and 
history  of  those  grievous  departures  from  the  ancient  landmarks,  which, 
filling  the  whole  country  with  confusion  and  perplexity,  have  im- 
paired, more  or  less  seriously,  the  strength  and  discipline  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  " 

In  the   State    of  Massachusetts — not  barren   of  inventions — in   the 
year  1811,  at  a  meeting  of  an  ecclesiastical  council,  a  committee  was 
appointed,  whereof  a   reverend    doctor,  of  Salem,  was    chairman,  to 
draught  a  constitution  fdr  the  first  "  Temperance  Society"  in  the    Uni- 
ted  States.     The    committee   reported    in  1813,  and  the  society  was 
established.     It   languished   till    1826;    and,  "languishing    did    live." 
Nathan  Dane  was  among  its  first  presidents.     In  that  year  of  grace, 
sir,   at    Boston,  died  this  association,  and  from  its  ashes  sprang  the 
"American  Society  for   the    promotion  of  Temperance" — the  parent 
of  a  numerous  offspring.     This  association  was,  in  its  turn,  supj^lanted 
by  the  Washingtonian  Societies  of  1841,  and  they,  again,  by  the  Sons 
of  Temperance.     The  eldest  of  these    organizations  taught  only  temper- 
ance in  the  use  of  ardent  spirits ;  their  successors  forbade,  wholly,  all 
spirituous,  but  allowed  vinous  and  fermented  liquors.     The  AVashing- 
tonians  enjoined  total  abstinence  from  every  beverage  which,  by  possi- 
bility, might   intoxicate,  and    so,  also,   did  the  Sons  of  Temperance. 
But  all  these  organizations,  gentlemen — in  the  outset,  at  least— pro- 
fessed reliance  solely  upon  "moral  suasion,"  and  denied  all  political 
purpose  or  design  in  their  action.     They  were  voluntary  associations, 
formed   to  persuade   men   to    be   temperate.      This    was    right,    was 
reasonable ;  was  great,   and  noble ;  and  immense  results  for  'good  re- 
warded  their   labors.     The    public  was  interested,   everywhere.     The 
cause  became  popular — became  powerful.     Designing  men,  not  honest, 
were  not  slow  to  discover  that  it  might  be  turned  into  a  potent  politi- 
cal engine  for  the  advancement  of  personal  or  party  iiiterests.     Weak 
men,  very  honest,  were  dazzled  and  deluded  by  the  bright  dream  of  in^ 
temperance  expelled,  and  man  restored  to  his  original  purity,  by  the 
power  of  human  legislation.     And  lo,  in  1855,  in  this,  the  freest  coun- 
try upon  the  globe,  fourteen  States,  by  statute — bristling  all  over  with 
fines,    the  jail,    and   the    penitentiary — have    prescribed   that   neither 
strong  drink  nor  the  fruit  of  the  \ane  shall  be  the  subject  of  contract, 
traffic,  or  use  within  their  limits.     Temperance,  which  Paul  preached, 
and  the  Bible  teaches  as  a  religious  duty,  and  leaves  to  the  Church,  or 
the  voluntary  association,  is  now  become  a  controlling  element  at  the 


104  vallandigham's  speeches. 

polls  and  in  legislation.  Political  parties  are  perverted  into  great 
temperance  societies;  and  the  fitness  of  the  citizen  for  office  gauged 
now  by  Ills  capacity  to  remain  dry.  His  palm  may  itch;  his  whole 
head  may  be  weak,  and  his  whole  heart  corrupt ;  but  if  his  tongue  bo 
but  parched,  he  is  competent. 

And  now,  sir,  along  \Yith  good,  came  evil;  and  when  the  good 
turned  to  evil,  the  plague  abounded  exceedingly.  I  pass  by  that 
numerous  host  of  lesser  isms  of  the  day,  full — all  of  them — of  folly,  or 
fanaticism,  and  fit  only  to  "  uproar  the  universal  peace,  confound  all 
unity  on  earth,"  which,  nevertheless,  have  excited  much  public  interest, 
numbeied  many  followers,  and,  flowing  speedily  into  the  stream  of 
party  politics,  aided  largely  to  pollute  its  already  turbid  and  frothy 
waters.  I  come  to  that  most  recent  fungus  development  of  those  de- 
partures from  original  and  wholesome  political  principle,  Know- 
NoTiiiNGisM — as  l^arbarous  in  name,  as,  in  my  judgment,  it  is  danger- 
ous in  essence. 

The  extraordinary  success,  gentlemen,  which  had  attended  political 
temperance  and  abolition,  revealed  a  mine  of  wealth,  richer  than  Cali- 
fornia placer,  to  the  oflice-hunting  demagogue.  Ordinary  political 
topics  were  become  stale — certainly  unprofitable.  But  he,  it  now  ap- 
peared, who  could  call  in  the  aid  of  moral  or  religious  truths,  touched 
an  answering  chord  in  the  heart  of  this  very  pious  and  upright  people 
— a  people  so  keenly  sensitive,  too,  each  one,  to  the  moral  or  religious 
status  of  his  neighbor. 

Not  ignorant,  sir,  of  the  corroding  bitterness  of  religious  strife,  and 
mindful  of  the  desolating  persecutions,  for  conscience'  sake,  of  which 
governments,  in  times  past,  had  been  the  willing  instruments,  the 
founders  of  our  Federal  Constitution  forbade,  in  clear  and  positive  lan- 
guage, all  religious  tests  and  establishments :  and  every  State,  in  tenns 
more  or  less  emphatic,  has  ordained  a  similar  prohibition.  The  Con- 
stitution of  Ohio,  declaring  that  all  men  have  a  natural  and  indefeasible 
right  to  worship  Almighty  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own 
conscience,  provides  that  "  no  preference  shall  be  given,  by  law,  to  any 
religious  society,  nor  shall  amy  interference  with  the  rights  of  con- 
Bcience  be  permitted ;  and  no  religious  test  shall  be  required  as  a  quali- 
fication for  o^ce." 

By  prohibitions,  positive  and  stringent  as  these  are,  gentlemen,  our 
f;xthers,  in  their  weakness,  thought  to  stay  the  flood  of  religious  in- 
tolerance. Vain  hope !  The  high  road  to  honor  and  emolument  lay 
through  the  "  higher  law"  reforms  of  the  day.  Moral  and  religious 
issues  alone  were  found  available.  The  roll  of  the  "  drum  ecclesiastic" 
could  stir  a  fever  in  the  public  blood,  when  the  thunders  of  the  rostrum 
fell  dull  and  droning  upon  the  ears  of  the  people.     It  needed  but  small 


HISTORY    OF   THE   ABOLITION    MOVEMENT.  105 

sagacity,  therefore,  to  foresee  that  the  prejudices  of  race  and  sect  must 
prove  a  still  more  powerful  and  wieldy  engine.  The  Pope  of  Pilgrim's 
Progress  grinned  still  at  the  mouth  of  the  cave  full  of  dead  men's 
bones ;  and  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  lay  shuddering  yet,  with  its  hideous 
engravings,  under  every  Protestant  roof  How  easy,  then,  to  revive, 
or,  rather,  to  fan  into  a  flame,  this  secret  but  worse  than  goblin  dread 
of  Papacy  and  the  Inquisition.  Add  to  this,  that  a  majority  of  Catho- 
lics are  foreigners — obnoxious,  therefore,  to  the  bigotry  of  race  and 
birth  also ;  add,  further,  that  silence,  secrecy,  and  circumspection  are 
weapons  potent  in  any  hands :  add,  still,  that  to  be  over-curious  is  a 
controlling  element  in  the  American  character.  Compoimd,  now,  all 
these  with  a  travesty  upon  the  signs,  grips,  and  machinery  of  already 
existing  organizations,  and  you  have  the  elements  and  mechanism  of  a 
great  and  powerful,  but  assuredly  not  enduring  party. 

In  the  month  of  January,  1854,  the  telegraph,  on  lightning  wing, 
speeds  through  its  magic  meshes  the  astounding  intelligence  that,  at 
the  municipal  election  of  the  town  of  Salem  (not  unknown  in  history), 
in  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  men  not  known  to  be  candi- 
dates were,  by  an  invisible  and  unknown  agency,  said  to  be  a  secret, 
oath-bound  society,  without  even  so  much  as  a  name,  elected  by  heavy 
majorities  over  candidates  openly  proclaimed.  In  March,  and  in 
April,  similar  announcements  appear  from  other  quarters.  The  mys- 
tery is  perplexing — the  country  is  on  fire — and  lo,  in  October,  nine 
montlis  after  this  Salem  epiphany,  from  Maine  to  California,  the  mythic 
"  Sam"  has  established  his  secret  conclaves  in  every  city,  village, 
county,  and  State  in  the  Union. 

And  here,  again,  sir,  the  Protestant  clergy,  forgetting,  many  of  them, 
their  divine  warrant  and  holy  mission — I  speak  it  with  profoundest 
sorrow  and  humiliation — have  run  headlong^  into  this  dano-erous  and 
demoralizing  organization.  They  have  even  sought,  in  many  places,  to 
control  it,  and  through  it,  the  political  affairs  of  the  country :  and,  sad 
spectacle !  are  found  but  too  often  foremost  and  loudest  and  most 
clamorous  among  political  brawlers  and  hunters  of  place.  I  rejoice, 
sir,  that  there  are  many  noble  and  holy  exceptions — ministers  mindful 
of  their  true  province,  and  preaching  only  the  pure  precepts  and  doc- 
trines of  that  Sacred  Volume,  without  which  there  is  no  religion,  and 
no  stability  or  virtue  worth  the  name,  in  either  Church  or  State. 
Nevertheless,  covertly  or.  openly,  the  Protestant  clergy  and  Church 
have  but  too  much  lent  countenance  and  encouragement  to  the  order. 
And  the  truth  must  and  shall  be  spoken  both  of  Church  and  of 
Party. 

In  seizing  upon  the  Temperance  and  other  moral  and  religious  move- 
ments, party  invaded  the  territory  of  the  Church.     The  Church  has 


lOGi  .    -VALLA^S^DIGHASl's    SPEECHES. 

now  avenged  the  aggression,  and  gone  into  party — not  with  the  might 
and  majesty  of  holiness — not  to  purify  and  elevate — but  with  dis- 
torted feature,  breath  polluted,  and  wing  dripping  and  droiling  in  mire 
and  stench  and  rottenness,  to  destroj'  and  pollute,  in  the  foul  embrace, 
whatever  of  purity  remained  yet  to  either  Church  or  the  hustings. 
The  Church  has  disorganized  and  perverted  party ;  and,  in  its  turn, 
party  has  become  to  the  Church  as  "  dead  flies  in  the  ointmeirt  of  the 
apothecary."  Church  and  State,  each  abandoning  its  peculiar  prov- 
ince, and  meeting  upon  the  common  ground  of  fanaticism  and  pro- 
scription, have  joined  hands  in  polluting  and  incestuous  wedlock.  The 
Constitution  remains,  indeed,  unchanged  in  letter;  but  this  unholy 
union  has  rendered  nugatory  one  among  its  wisest  and  most  salutary 
enactments. 

But,  gentlemen,  all  these  are,  in  their  nature  and  from  circumstances, 
essentiallvH^phemeral.  No  powerful  and  controlling  interests  exist  to 
cement  and  harden  them  into  strength  «nd  durability.  They  are 
among  the  epidemic  diseases  which  for  a  season  infect  every  body 
politic — leaving  it,  if  sound  in  constitution  and  not  distempered  other- 
wise, purified  and  strengthened.  In  all  these,  too,  the  Democracy,  as  a 
party,  has  stood  firm  and  uncontaminate ;  although,  indeed,  individual 
members  have,  in  every  State  and  county,  been  beguiled  and  led 
astray,  and  thereby  the  aggregate  po^ve^  and  influence  of  the  party 
greatly  impaired. 

Especially,  sir,  is  the  present  order  of  "  Know-Nothings"  evanescent. 
Even  now  it  totters  to  the  earth.  In  the  beginning,  indeed,  it  was, 
perhaps,  the  purpose  of  its  founders  to  hold  it  aloof  from  the  great 
sectional  controversy  between  the  North  and  the  South,  and  to  mould 
it  into  a  permanent  national  party.  But  circumstances  are  stronger 
than  men — and  already  througliont  the  North  it  has  become  thorough- 
ly abolitionized.  Hence,  it  must  speedily  dissolve  and  pass  away,  or 
remain  but  a  yet  more  hateful  adjunct  of  that  one  stronger  and  more 
durable  oi'ganization,  in  which  every  element  of  opposition  to  the  De- 
mocratic party  must,  sooner  or  later,  inevitably  terminate — the  Aboli- 
tion HORDE  OF  THE  NoRTH  ;  for,  liowcvcr  tortuous  may  be  its  chan- 
nel, or  remote  its  fountain,  into  this  turbid  and  devouring  flood  will 
every  brook  and  rivulet  find  its  way  at  last. 

The  consideration  of  this  great  question,  Mr.  President,  I  have  natu- 
rally and  appropriately  reserved  to  the  last.  It  is  the  gravest  and  most 
momentous,  full  of  embaiTassment  and  of  danger  to  the  country ;  and, 
in  cowering  before,  or  tampering  with  it,  the  Democratic  party  of 
Ohio  has  given  itself  a  disabling,  though  I  trust  not  yet  mortal  wound. 

I  propose,  then,  sir,  to  trace  fully  the  origin,  development,  and  pro- 
gress of  this  movement,  and  to  explore,  and  lay   open  at  length,  its  re- 


HISTORY    or   THE   ABOLITION   MOVEME]S"T.  107 

lations,  present  and  prospective,  to  the  Democratic  party  and  to  the 
Union. 

Slavery,  gentlemen — older  in  other  countries  also  than  the  records 
of  human  society — existed  in  America  at  the  date  of  its  discovery. 
The  first  slaves  of  the  European  Avere  natives  of  the  soil;  and  a  Puritan 
governor  of  Massachusetts— founder  of  the  family  of  Winthrop — be- 
queathed his  soul  to  God,  and  his  Indian  slaves  to  the  lawful  heirs  of 
his  body.  Negro  slavery  was  introduced  into  Hispaniola  in  1501, 
more  than  a  century  before  the  colonization  of  America  by  the  English. 
Massachusetts,  by  express  enactment,  in  1G41,  punishing  "  man- 
stealing"  with  death — and  it  is  so  punished  to  this  day  under  the  laws 
of  the  United  States — legalized  yet  the  enslaving  of  captives  taken  in 
war,  and  of  such  "  strangers,"  yb;'fc/y/2^?\v,  as  should  be  acquired  by  pur- 
chase ;  while  confederate  New  England,  two  years  later,  providing  for 
the  equitable  division  of  lands,  goods,  and  '■'■persons^''  as  equally  a  part 
of  the  "spoils"  of  v.ar,  enacted  also  tlie  first  fugitive  slave  law  in  Amer- 
ica.* AVhite  slaves — convicts  and  paupers  some  of  them  ;  others,  at  a 
later  day,  prisonei's  taken  at  the  battles  of  Dunbar,  and  Worcester,  and 
of  Sedgemoor — were,  at  the  first,  em2:)loyed  in  Virginia  and  the  British 
West  Indies.  Bought  in  England  by  English  dealers,  among  whom 
was  the  queen  of  James  IL,  with  many  of  his  nobles  and  courtiers — 
some  of  them,  perhaps,  of  the  house  of  Sutherland — they  were  im- 
ported and  sold  at  auction  to  the  highest  bidder.  In  1620,  a  Dutch 
man-of-war  first  landed  a  cargo  of  slaves  upon  the  banks  of  James  River. 
But  the  earliest  slave-ship  belonging  to  the  English  colonists  was  fitted 
out,  in  1645,  by  a  member  of  the  Puritan  Church,  of  Boston.  Foster- 
ed still  by  English  princes  and  nobles,  confirmed  and  cherished  by 
British  legislation  and  judicial  decisions,  even  against  the  wishes,  and 
in  spite   of  the  remonstrances,  of  the   Colonics,  the  traflic   increased ; 

*  Slavery  in  Massachusetts. — "  There  shall  never  be  any  bond  slavery, 
villeinage,  or  captivity  among  us,  rmless  it  be  lawful  captives  taken  in  just  wars, 
and  such  strangers  as  willingly  sell  themselves,  or  are  sold  to  us." — Massachu- 
setts Body  of  Liberties,  lG-11,  §91. 

'•It  is,  also,  by  these  confederates  agreed,  that,  etc and  that  according  to 

the  diKerent  charge  of  each  jurisdiction  and  plantation,  the  whole  advantage  of 
the  war  (if  it  please  God  so  to  bless  their  endeavors)  whether  it  be  in  lands, 
goods,  or  persons,  shall  be  proportioaably  divided  among  said  confederates." — 
Articles  of  Confeleration,  etc.,  2Lvj  10. 1613;  §  4;  and  BmcrofCs  Unitsd  States,  vol. 
1,  p.  168. 

The  New  England  Fugitive  Slave  Law. — "It  is  also  agreed  that  if  any 
servant  run  away  from  his  ma-star  into  any  of  these  confederate  jurisdictions,  that, 
in  such  case,  upon  certificate  of  one  magistrate  in  the  jurisdiction  out  of  which  the 
said  servant  fled,  or  upon  due  proof,  the  said  servant  shall  be  delivered  ujy  either 
to  his  master  or  any  other  that  pursues  and  brings  such  certificate  or  proof." — 
Ibid.,  §  8. 


lOS  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

slaves  multiplied,  and,  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  1776,  ever}-  Colony  was 
now  become  a  slave  State ;  and  the  sun  went  down  that  day  upon  four 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  those  who,  in  the  cant  of  eighty  years 
later,  are  styled  "  human  chattels,"  but  who  were  not,  by  the  act  of 
that  day,  emancipated. 

Eleven  years  afterward,  delegates,  assembling  at  Philadelphia,  from 
every  State  except  Rhode  Island,  ignoring  the  question  of  the  sinfulness 
and  immorality  of  slavery,  as  a  subject  with  which  they,  as  the  represent- 
atives of  separate  and  independent  States,  had  no  concern,  founded  a 
Union  and  framed  a  Constitution,  which,  lea\'ing  with  each  State  the 
exclusive  control  and  regulation  of  its  own  'domestic  institutions,  and 
providing  for  the  taxation  and  representation  of  slaves,  gave  no  right  to 
Congress  to  debate  or  to  legislate  concerning  slavery  in  the  States  or 
Territories,  except  for  the  interdiction  of  the  slave-trade  and  the  extra- 
dition of  fugitive  slaves.  The  Plan  of  Union  proposed  by  Franklin,  in 
1754,  had  contained  no  allusion,  even,  to  slavery;  and  the  Articles  of 
Confederation  of  1778,  but  a  simple  recognition  of  its  existence — so 
whollv  was  it  regarded  then  a  domestic  and  local  concern.  In  1787 
every  State,  except,  perhaps,  Massachusetts,  tolerated  slavery  either  ab- 
solutely or  conditionally.  But  the  number  of  slaves  north  of  Maiyland, 
never  great,  was  even  yet  comparatively  small — not  exceeding  forty 
thousand  in  a  total  slave  population  of  six  hundred  thousand.  In  the 
North,  chief  carrier  of  slaves  to  others,  even  as  late  as  1807,  slavery 
never  took  firm  root.*  Nature  warred  against  it  in  that  latitude  ;  other- 
wise every  State  in  the  Union  would  have  been  a  slaveholding  State  to 
this  dav.  It  was  not  profitable  there,  and  it  died  out — lingering,  indeed, 
in  New  York,  till  July,  1827.  It  died  out;  but  not  so  much  by  the 
manumission  of  slaves  as  by  their  transportation  and  sale  in  the  South. 
And  thus  New  England,  sir,  turned  an  honest  penny  with  her  left  hand, 
and  with  her  risrht  modestly  wrote  herself  down  in  history  as  both 
generous  and  just. 

In  the  South,  gentlemen,  all  this  was  precisely  reversed.  The  earliest 
and  most  resolute  enemies  to  slavery  were  Southern  men.  But  climate 
had  fastened  the  institution  upon  them  ;  and  they  found  no  way  to  strike 
it  down.  From  the  beginning,  indeed,  the  Southern  colonies  cspeci^ly 
had  resisted  the  introduction  of  African  .slaves ;  and,  at  the  ver)'^  outset 
of  the  revolution,  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  interdicted  the  slave- 
trade.     The  Continental  Congress  soon  after,  on  the  6th  of  April,  1776, 

*  Thr  North  axd  Tee  Slave  Tba.de. — The  number  of  African  slaves  imported 
into  the  port  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  alone,  in  the  years  1S04,  1805,  1806,  and  1807 — 
the  last  year  of  the  slave-trade — was  39,075.  These  were  consigTied  to  ninety-one 
British  subjects,  eighty-eight  citizens  of  New  England,  ten  French  subjects,  and 
only  thirteen  citizens  of  Charleston. —  Compend.  of  U.  S.  Census,  p.  83. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  109 

three  months  earlier  than  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  resolved 
that  no  more  slaves  ought  to  be  imported  into  the  Thirteen  Colonies. 
Jefferson,  in  his  draught  of  the  Declaration,  had  denounced  the  king  of 
England  alike  for  encouraging  the  slave-trade,  and  for  fomenting  servile 
insurrection  in  the  provinces.  Ten  years  later,  he  boldly  attacked 
slavery,  in  his  "  Notes  on  Virginia ;"  and  in  the  Congress  of  the  Con- 
federation, prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution^  with  its  solemn  com- 
pacts and  compromises  upon  the  subject  of  sla.very,  proposed  to  exclude 
it  from  the  territory  northwest  of  the  river  Ohio.  Colonel  Mason,  of  Vir- 
ginia, vehemently  condemned  it,  in  the  Convention  of  1787.  Never- 
theless, it  had  already  become  manifest  that  slavery  must  soon  die  away 
in  the  North,  but  in  the  South  continue  and  harden  into,  perhaps,  a 
permanent,  uneradicable  system.  Hostile  interests  and  jealousies  sprang 
up,  therefore,  in  bitterness,  even  in  the  Convention.  But  the  blood  of 
the  patriot  brothers  of  Carolina  and  Massachusetts  smoked  yet  upon 
the  battle-fields  of  the  Revolution.  The  recollection  of  their  kindred 
lanoruao-e  and  common  danorers  and  sufferings,  burned  still  fresh  in  their 
hearts.  Patriotism  proved  more  powerful  than  jealousy,  and  good  sense 
stronger  than  fanaticism.  There  were  no  Sewards,  no  Hales,  no  Sum- 
ners,  no  Greeleys,  no  Parkers,  no  Chases,  in  that  Convention.  There 
was  a  Wilson,  but  he  rejoiced  not  in  the  name  of  Henry  ;  and  he  was 
a  Scotchman.  There  was  a  clergyman — no,  not  in  the  Convention  of 
'87,  but  in  the  Congress  of  '7G  ;  but  it  was  the  devout,  the  learned,  the 
pious,  the  patriotic  Witherspoon ;  of  foreign  birth,  also — a  native  of 
Scotland,  too.  The  men  of  that  day  and  generation,  sir,  were  content 
to  leave  the  question  of  slavery  just  where  it  belonged.  It  did  not 
occur  to  them,  that  each  one  among  them  was  accountable  for  "  the  sin 
of  slaveholding"  in  his  fellow ;  and  that  to  ease  his  tender  conscience 
of  the  burden,  all  the  fruits  of  revolutionary  privation,  and  blood,  and 
treasure — all  the  recollections  of  the  past,  all  the  hopes  of  the  future — 
nay,  the  Union,  and  with  it,  domestic  tranquillity  and  national  indepen- 
dence— ought  to  be  offered  up  as  a  sacrifice.  They  were  content  to  deal 
with  political  questions,  and  to  leave  cases  of  conscience  to  the  Church 
and  the  schools,  or  to  the  individual  man.  And,  accordingly,  to  this 
Union  and  Constitution,  based  upon  these  compromises — execrated  now 
as  "  covenants  with  death  and  leagues  with  hell" — every  State  acceded ; 
and  upon  these  foundations,  thus  broad  and  deep  and  stable,  a  political 
superstructure  has,  as  if  by  magic,  arisen,  which,  in  symmetiy^  and  pro- 
portion, and,  if  we  would  but  be  true  to  our  ti-ust,  in  strength  and  dura- 
bility, finds  no  parallel  in  the  world's  history. 

Patriotic  sentiments,  sir,  such  as  marked  the  era  of  '89,  continued  to 
guide  the  statesmen  and  people  of  the  country,  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  full  of  prosperity ;  till,  in  a  dead  political  calm,  consequent  upon 


110  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

temporary  extinguislimcnt  of  the  ancient  party  lines  and  issues,  the 
Missouri  Qiestiox,  resoundinj; through  the  land  with  the  hollow  moan 
of  the  earthquake,  shook  the  pillars  of  the  Republic  even  to  their  deep 
foundations. 

Within  these  thirty  years,  gentlemen,  slavery,  as  a  system,  had  been 
abolished  by  Liav  or  disuse,  quietly  and  without  agitation,  in  every  State 
north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line — in  many  of  them  lingering,  indeed, 
in  individual  cases,  so  late  as  the  census  of  1840.  But,  except  in  half 
a  score  of  instances,  the  question  had  not  been  obtruded  upon  Congress. 
The  Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1793  had  been  passed  without  opposition, 
and  without  a  division  in  the  Senate ;  and  by  a  vote  of  foity-eight  to 
seven  in  the  House.  The  slave-trade  had  been  declared  piracy,  punish- 
able with  death.  Respectftil  petitions  from  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  others,  upon  the  slavery  question,  were  referred  to  a  committee,  and 
a  report  made  thereon,  which  laid  the  matter  at  rest.  Other  petitions, 
afterward,  were  quietly  rejected,  and,  in  one  instance,  returned  to  the 
petitioner.  Louisiana  and  Florida,  both  slaveholding  countries,  had, 
without  agitation,  been  added  to  our  temtorv.  Kentucky,  Tennessee. 
Louisiana,  Mississippi,  and  Alabama,  slave  States  each  one  of  them,  had 
been  admitted  into  the  Union,  without  a  murmur.  Xo  Missouri  Re- 
striction, no  "Wilmot  Proviso,  had  as  yet  reared  its  discordant  front  to 
terrify  and  confound.  Non-Intervextion  was  then  both  the  practice 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  statesmen  and  people  of  that  period  ;  though,  as 
yet,  no  hollow  platform  enunciated  it  as  an  article  of  faith,  from  which, 
nevertheless,  obedience  might  be  withheld,  and  the  platform  "spit  upon," 
provided  the  tender  conscience  of  the  recusant  did  not  forbid  him  to 
support  the  candidate,  and  help  to  secure  the  "  spoils." 

Once  only,  sir,  was  there  a  deliberate  purpose  shown,  by  a  formal 
assault  upon  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution,  to  array  the  preju- 
dices of  geographical  sections  upon  the  question  of  slavery.  But.  orig- 
inating within  the  secret  counsels  of  the  Hartford  Convention,  it  partook 
of  the  odium  which  touched  every  thing  connected  with  that  treasonable 
assembly,*  till,  set  on  fire  by  a  live  coal  from  the  altar  of  jealousy  and 
fanaticism,  it  burst  into  a  conflagration,  six  years  later.     And  now,  sir, 

*  The  IIartfoiu)  Coxvextiox. — "  Eesolved,  That  it  is  expedient  to  recommend  to 
the  several  State  legislatures  certain  amendments  to  tlie  Constitution,  viz. : 

"  That  the  power  to  declare  or  make  war.  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
be  restricted.  That  it  is  expedient  to  attempt  to  make  provision  for  restraining 
Congress  in  the  exercise  of  an  unlimited  power  to  mak^  Xeio  States,  and  admit  them 
into  the  U.rion.  That  an  amendinent  he  proposed  respecting  slave  repiiesextatiox 
AND  SLAVE  TAXATION." — The  third  resolution  of  the  Hartford  ConventUm,  reported 
Dec.  24,  MM,  arid  iuiseqiiently  adopted. 

It  was  also  resolved  ''that  the  capacity  of  naturalized  citizens  to  hold  offices  of 
trust,  honor,  or  profit,  ought  to  be  restricted." 


HISTOEY    or    THE    ABOLlTIO^r   MOYE^IENT.  11 1 

for  the  first  time  in  our  history  under  the  Constitution,  a  strenuous  and 
roost  embittered  struggle  ensued,  on  the  part  of  the  North — the  Feder- 
alists of  the  North — to  prevent  the  admission  of  a  State  into  the  Union  ; 
really,  because  the  North — the  Federalists  of  the  North — strove  for  the 
masterv,  and  to  secure  the  balance  of  power  in  her  own  hands ;  but 
ostensibly  because  slaveholding,  which  the  Missouri  Constitution  sanc- 
tioned, was  affirmed  to  be  immoral  and  irreligious.  In  this  first  fearful 
strife,  this  earliest  departure  from  the  Constitution  and  the  ancient  sound 
policy  of  the  countrv,  the  North — for  the  tnith  of  history  shall  be  vindi- 
cated— THE  North  was  the  aggi'essor ;  and  that,  too,  without  the  slightest 
provocation.  Vermont,  in  New  England,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  out 
of  territory  once  the  property  of  slaveholding  Virginia,  had  been  admitted 
into  the  Union  ;  and  Michigan  orcfanized  into  a  temtorial  afovernment, 
without  one  hostile  vote  fi-om  the  South  given  upon  the  ground  that 
slavery  was  interdicted  within  their  limits.  Even  Elaine  had  been  per- 
mitted, by  vote  of  Congress,  to  separate  from  Massachusetts,  and  become 
a  distinct  State,  But  now  Missouri  knocked  for  admission,  with  a  con- 
stitution not  introducing,  but  continuing  slavery,  which  had  existed  in 
her  midst  from  the  beginning ;  and  four  several  times,  at  the  first,  she 
was  rejected  by  the  North.  The  South  resisted,  and  the  storm  raged. 
Jefferson,  professing  to  hate  slavery,  but  living  and  dying  himself  a 
slaveholder,  or,  in  the  delicate  slang  of  to-day,  a  "  slave-breeder,"  loving 
yet  his  country  with  all  the  fervid  patriotism  of  his  early  manhood  five 
and  forty  years  before,  heard  in  it  "  the  knell  of  the  Union,"  and  mourned 
that  he  must  "  die  now  in  the  belief  that  the  useless  sacrifice  of  them- 
selves by  the  generation  of  1776,  to  acquire  self-government  and  happi- 
ness to  their  country',  was  to  be  thrown  away  by  the  unwise  and 
unworthy  passions  of  their  sons ;"  consoling  himself — the  only  solace  of 
the  patriot  of  fourscore  years — that  he  should  not  live  to  weep  over  the 
blessings  thrown  thus  recklessly  away  for  "  an  abstract  principle ;"  and 
-  the  follv  and  madness  of  this  "  act  of  suicide  and  of  treason  airainst  the 
hopes  of  the  world."* 

*  The  MrssorRi  Qcestiox  a  Federal  Movemext — the  North  the  Aggressor. 
— "The  slavery  agitation  took  its  rise  during  this  time  (1819-20),  in  the  form  of  at- 
tempted restriction  on  the  State  of  Missouri — a  prohibition  to  hold  slaves  to  be 
placed  upon  her  as  a  condition  of  her  admission  into  the  Union,  and  to  be  binding 
upon  her  afterward.  Thisagii/ition  came  from  the  Xorth,  and  under  a  Ftckral  lead, 
and  soon  swept  both  parties  into  its  vortex.  ....  Tfie  real  struggle  was  political, 
and  for  th'i  balance  of  power,  as  frankly  declared  by  Mr.  Rufiis  King,  who  disdained 

dissimulation The  resistance  made  to  the  admission  of  the  State,  on  account 

of  the  clause  in  relation  to  free  people  of  color,  was  only  a  mask  to  the  real  cause 

of  opposition For  a  while  tins  formidable  Missouri  question  threatened  the  total 

overthrov:  of  all  political  parties  upon  principle,  and  the  substitution  of  gtograjthical 
parties,  distinguished  by  the  slave  line,  and,  of  course,  destroying  the  just  and  proper 


112  vallat^-digham's  speeches. 

« 

But  the  incantations  of  hate  and  fanaticism  had  evoked  the  hideous 
spectre,  and  it  ought  to  have  been  quelled,  never  to  reappear.  The 
appalling  question  was  now  stirred ;  and  it  should  have  been  met  and 
resettled  forever,  by  the  men  of  tliat  day,  on  the  original  basis  of  the 
Constitution — not  left,  as  a  legacy  of  discord,  a  Pandora's  box  full  of  all 
evil,  of  mischief  and  pestilence,  to  the  next  generation.  They  were  not 
true  to  themselves ;  they  were  not  true  to  us.  They  cowered  before 
the  goblin,  and  laid  before  it  peace-offerings  and  a  wave-offering,  and 
sent  us,  their  children,  to  pass  through  the  fire  in  the  valley  of  Hinnom. 
Setting  aside  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution,  and  usurping  power 
not  granted  to  Congress,  they  undertook  to  compromise  about  that 
•which  had  already  been  definitely  and  permanently  settled  by  that  in- 
strument. This  was  the  beginning,  sir,  of  that  line  of  paltry  and  halt- 
ing compromises ;  of  fat-brained,  mole-eyed,  unmanlike  expedients, 
which  put  the  evil  day  off  only  to  return  laden  with  aggravated  mischief. 
They  hushed  the  terrible  question  for  a  moment ;  and  the  election 
machinery  moved  on,  and  the  spoils  of  the  Presidency  were  divided  as 
before.  But  it  was  "  a  reprieve  only,  not  a  final  sentenced  The 
"  geographical  line"  thus  once  conceived  for  the  first  time,  and  held  up 
to  the  angry  passions  of  men,  was,  as  Jefterson  had  foretold,  never  ob- 
literated, but  rather,  by  every  irritation,  marked  deeper  and  deeper. 
And,  after  fifteen  years'  truce,  it  reappeared  in  a  new  and  far  more 
dangerous  form  ;  and,  enduring  already  for  more  than  half  the  average 
lifetime  of  man,  has  attained  a  position  and  magnitude  which  neither 
demands,  nor  will  hearken  to  any  further  compromise.  Nevertheless, 
sir,  but  for  the  insolent  intermeddling  of  the  British  government  and 
British  emissaries — continued  to  this  day,  with  the  superaddition  now 
of  Napoleon  the  Third — it  might  have  slumbered  for  many  years 
longer. 

In  England,  gentlemen,  the  form  of  personal  bondage  disappeared 
even  to  its  last  traces  from  her  own  soil,  about 'the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century;  its  legal  existence  continued  till  1661;  its  worst 

action  of  the  Federal  Governmenc,  and  leading  eventually  to  a  separation  of  the 
States.  It  was  a  Federal  movement,  accruing  to  the  benefit  of  tliat  party,  and,  at 
first,  was  overwhelming,  sweeping  all  the  Northern  Democracy  into  its  current,  and 
giving  the  supremacy  to  their  adversaries.  When  this  effect  was  perceived,  the 
Northern  Democracy  became  alarmed,  and  only  wanted  a  turn  or  abatement  in  pop- 
ular feeling  at  home,  to  take  the  first  opportunity  to  get  rid  of  the  question,  by  admitting 

the  State,  aiid  re-establishing  party  lines  upon  the  basis  of  political  principles 

It  was  a  political  movement  for  the  balance  of  power,  balked  by  the  Northern 
Democracy,  who  saw  their  own  overthrow,  and  the  eventual  separation  of  the 
States,  in  the  establishment  of  geographical  parties  divided  by  a  slavery  and  anti- 
slavery  line In   the  Missouri  controversy,  the   North  was  the  undisputed 

aggressor." — Banton's  Thirty  Years,  pp.  5,  10,  and  136,  o/  volume  first. 


HISTOEY   OF   THE   ABOLITION    MOVEMENT.  Ho 

realities  remain  to  this  day;  for  althongli,  in  that  very  humane  and 
most  enlightened  Island,  there  be  no  involuntary  servitude  except  as  a 
punishment  for  crime,  yet  in  England  poverty  is  a  crime,  punishable 
with  the  worst  form  of  slavery,  or  by  starvation  and  death.  Three 
hundred  years  ago,  she  began  to  traffic  in  negro  slaves.  Queen  Eliza- 
beth was  a  sharer  in  its  gains.  A  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  at  the  • 
peace  of  Utrecht,  England  undertook,  by  compact  with  Spain,  to  im- 
port into  the  AVest  Indies,  within  the  space  of  thirty  years,  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-four  thousand  negroes,  demanding,  and  with  exactcst  care 
securing,  a  monopoly  of  the  traffic.  Queen  Anne  reserved  one-quarter 
of  the  stock  of  the  slave-trading  company  to  herself,  and  one-half  to 
her  subjects;  to  the  king  of  Spain  the  other  quarter  being  conceded. 
Even  so  late  as  1*750,  Parliament  busied  itself  in  devising  plans  to  make 
the  slave-trade  still  more  effectual,  while  in  1775,  the  very  year  of  the 
revolution,  a  noble  earl  wrote  to  a  colonial  agent  these  memorable 
w^ords:  "We  cannot  allow  the  Colonies  to  check  or  discourage,  in  any 
degree,  a  traffic  so  beneficial  to  the  nation."  Between  that  date,  and 
the  period  of  first  importation,  England  had  stolen  from  the  coast  of 
Africa,  and  imported  into  the  new  world,  or  buried  in  the  sea  on  the 
passage  thither,  not  less  tlian  three  and  a  quarter  millions  of  negroes — 
more,  by  half  a  million,  than  the 'entire  population  of  the  Colonics.  In 
April,  1776,  the  American  Congress  resolved  against  the  importation  of 
any  more  slaves.  But  England  continued  the  traffic,  with  all  its  ac- 
cumulated horrors,  till  1808;  for  so  deeply  had  it  struck  its  roots  into 
the  commercial  interests  of  that  country,  that  not  all  the  efforts  of  an 
organized  and  powerful  society,  not  the  influence  of  her  ministers,  not 
the  eloquence  of  all  her  most  renowed  orators,  availed  to  strike  it  down 
for  more  than  forty  years  after  this,  its  earliest  interdiction  in  any 
country,  by  a  rebel  congress.  Nevertheless,  sir,  slavery  in  the  English 
West  Indies  continued  twenty-seven  years  longer.  But  the  loss  of  hei' 
American  Colonies,  and  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade,  had  left 
small  interest  to  Great  Britain  in  negro  slavery.  Her  philanthropy 
found  room  now  to  develop  and  expand  in  all  its  wonderful  proportions. 
And  accordingly,  in  1834,  England — England,  drunk  with  the  blood 
of  the  martyrs,  stoning  the  prophets,  and  rejecting  the  apostles  of 
political  liberty,  in  her  own  midst — robbed,  by  act  of  Parliament,  one 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  from  the  wronged  and  beggared  peasantry 
of  Ireland,  from  the  enslaved  and  oppressed  millions  of  India,  from  the 
starving,  overwrought,  mendicant  carcasses  of  the  w^hite  slaves  of  her 
own  soil,  to  pay  to  her  impoverished  colonists,  plundered  without  voice 
and  without  vote  in  her  legislature,  the  stipulated  price  of  human  rights ; 
and  with  these,  the  wages  of  iniquity,  in  the  outraged  name  of  God  and 
humanity,  mocked  the  handful  of  her  black  bondsmen  in  the  West 
8 


114  vallandigham's  speeches. 

Indies   with   tlie   false   and   deludini^  shadow  of  Hberty.     Exeter  ITall 


K- 


resounded  with  acclamation;  bonfires  and  ilhnninations  proclaimed  t 
exultant  joy  of  an  aristocracy  fat  with  the  pride  and  lust  of  domination. 
But  in  that  self-same  hour — in  that  self-same  hour,  from  the  furnaces  of 
Sheffield  and  the  manufactories  of  Birmingham;  from  the  wretched 
hovels  of  Ireland,  full  of  famishing;  and  pestilence ;  from  ten  thousand 
work-houses  crowded  with  leprous  and  perishing  paupers,  the  abodes  of 
abominable  cruelties,  which  not  even  the  pen  of  a  Dickens  has  availed  • 
to  portray  in  the  full  measure  of  their  enormity,  and  from  the  mouths 
of  a  thousand  pits  and  mines,  deep  under  earth,  horrid  in  darkness,  and 
reeking  Avith  noisome  vapor,  the  stupendous  charnel-houses  of  the  living 
dead  men  of  England,  there  went  up,  and  ascends  yet  up  to  heaven,  the 
piercing  wail  of  desolation  and  despair. 

But  England  became  now  the  great  apostle  of  African  Jiberty.  Ignor- 
ing, sir,  or  putting  under,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  the  political  rights 
of  millions  of  her  own  white  subjects,  she  yet  prepared  to  convict  the 
world  of  the  sinfulness  of  negro  slavery.  Exeter  Hall  sent  out  its  emis- 
saries, full  of  zeal,  and  greedy  for  martyrdom.  The  British  government 
took  up  the  crusade — not  from  motives  of  religion  or  philanthropy. 
Let  no  man  be  deceived.  No,  sir.  Since  the  days  of  Peter  the  Hermit 
and  Richard  the  Lion-hearted,  England,  forgetting  the  Holy  Sepulchre-, 
had  learned  many  lessons ;  and  none  know  better  now  their  true  prov- 
ince and  mission,  than  English  statesmen.  But  the  American  experi- 
ment of  free  government  had  not  failed.  America  had  grown  great — 
had  grown  populous  an<l  powerful.  Her  proud  example,  towering  up 
every  day  higher,  and  illuminating  every  land,  was  penetrating  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  and  threatening  to  shake  the  thrones  of  every 
monarchy  in  Europe.  Force  against  such  a  nation  would  be  the  wildest 
of  follies.  But  to  be  odious  is  to  be  weak,  and  internal  dissension  had 
wasted  Greece,  and  opened  even  Thermopylae  to  the  Barbarian  of  Mace- 
don.  The  Missouri  Question  had  revealed  the  weak  point  of  the  Ameri- 
can Confederacy.  Achilles  was  found  vulnerable  in  the  heel.  In  sj)em 
ventiim  erat,  intestina  discordia  dissohn  rc7n  Romanam  jMsse. 

The  machinery  which  had  effected  emancipation  in  the  British  West 
India  Islands,  of  use  no  longer  in  England,  was  transferred  to  America. 
Aided  by  British  gold,  encouraged  by  British  sympathy,  the  agitation 
began  here,  in  1835;  and  so  complete  was  it  in  all  its  appointments,  so 
thorough  the  organization  and  discipline,  so  perfect  the  electric  current, 
that,  within  six  months,  the  whole  Union  was  convulsed.  Affiliated 
societies  were  established  in  every  Northern  State,  and  in  almost  every 
county  ;  lecturers  were  paid,  and  sent  forth  into  every  city  and  village : 
a  powerful  and  well-supported  press,  fed  from  the  treasuries,  and  work- 
ing up  the  cast-off  rags  of  the  British  societies,  poured  forth  a  multitude 


HISTOET    OF   THE    ABOLITIOl^    MOVEMENT.  115 

of  incendiary  prints  and  publications,  which  were  distributed  by  mail 
throughout  the  Union,  but  chiefly  in  the  Southern  States,  and  among 
the  slaves.  Fierce  excitement  in  the  South  followed.  And  so  great 
became  the  public  feeling  and  interest,  that  President  Jackson,  so  early 
as  the  annual  message  of  1835,  pressed  earnestly  upon  Congress  the 
duty  of  prohibiting  the  use  of  the  mail  for  transmitting  incendiary  pub- 
lications to  the  South.  But,  prior  to  the  sitting  of  Congress,  the  Abo- 
lition societies,  treading  again  in  the  footsteps  of  the  emancipationists 
in  England,  had  prepared,  and  now  poured  in  a  flood  of  petitions,  pray- 
ing Congress  to  take  action  upon  the  subject  of  slavery.  The  purpose 
was  to  obtain  a  foothold,  a  fulcrum,  in  the  capital ;  for  without  this,  the 
South  could  not  be  eflfectually  embroiled,  and  little  could  be  accom- 
plished, even  in  the  North.  But  no  appliances  were  left  untried.  Agi- 
tators, their  breath  was  agitation ;  quiescence  would  have  been  a  sen- 
tence of  obscurity  and  dissolution.  And  accordingly,  in  May,  1835, 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  established  in  New  York,  its 
object  being  the  immediate  and  unconditional  abolition  of  negro  slavery 
in  the  United  States.  It  was  a  permanent  organization,  to  be  dissolved 
only  upon  the  consummation  of  its  purpose.  The  object  of  attack  was 
the  South,  the  seat  of  war  the  North.  Public  sentiment  was  to  be 
stirred  up  here  against  slavery,  because  it  was  a  moral  evil,  and  a  sin  in 
the  sight  of  the  Most  High,  for  the  continuance  of  which,  one  day,  the 
men  of  the  North  were  accountable  before  heaven.  Slaveholders  were 
to  be  made  odious  in  the  eyes  of  Northern  men  and  foreign  nations,  as 
cruel  tyrants  and  task-masters,  as  Jkidnappers,  murderets,  and  pirates, 
whose  existence  was  a  reproach  to  the  North,  and  whom  it  were  just 
to  hunt  do^vn  and  exterminate,  as  so  many  beasts  of  prey,  to  whom 
even  the  laws  of  the  chase  extended  no  indulgence.  To  hold  fellowship 
and  union  with  slaveholders,  was  to  partake  of  all  their  sins  and  enor- 
mities ;  it  was  to  be  "  in  league  with  death  and  covenant  with  hell." 
The  Constitution  and  Union  were  themselves  sinful,  and,  as  such,  they 
ought  forthwith  to  be  abrogated  and  dissolved.  And  thus,  sir,  the 
earlier  Abolitionists,  who  were  zealots,  began  just  where  their  succes- 
sors of  to-day,  who  are  traitors,  have  ended. 

A  separate  political  organization  was  not,  at  the  first,  proposed,  and 
each  man  was  left  to  his  ancient  party  allegiance.  The  revolution  was 
to  be  a  moral  and  religious  revolution,  and  its  principles,  propagated  by 
petitions,  lectures,  societies,  and  the  press,  in  the  North,  were,  through 
these  instrumetitalities,  to  penetrate  Congi-ess  and  the  legislatures  of  the 
South,  and  if  not  hearkened  to  there,  then  to  effect  a  dismemberment 
of  the  Union  by  secession  of  the  North,  or  secession  forced  upon  the 
South. 

Slavery,  gentlemen,  had,  before  this,  been  the  subject  of  earnest  and 


116  VALLANDIGHA]«'S    SPEECHES. 

sometimes  angry  controversy  in  Congress,  and  elsewhere.  But  a  pow- 
erful and  permanent  organization,  founded  for  sucli  a  purpose,  and 
working  by  such  appliances,  had  never  yet  existed.  Coming  thus  in 
such  a  questionable  shape,  even  the  North  started  back  aghast,  as  at "  a 
goblin  damned ;"  and  it  was  denounced  as  treason  and  madness  from 
the  first.  Its  presses  were  destroyed,  its  assemblies  broken  up,  its  pub- 
lications burned,  and  its  lecturers  mobbed  everywhere,  and  more  than 
one  among  them  murdered  in  the  midst  of  popular  tumult  and  indigna- 
tion. The  churches,  the  school-houses,  the  court-houses,  and  the  pub- 
lic halls  were  alike  closed  against  them.  Misguided  men,  fanatics, 
emissaries  of  England,  traitors — these  were  among  the  mildest  of  epi- 
thets which,  in  every  place,  and  almost  from  every  tongue,  saluted  their 
ears.  The  very  name  of  "Abolitionist"  became  a  byword  and  a  hiss- 
ing. Xot  an  advocate,  and  scarce  even  an  apologist,  for  the  men,  or 
their  course,  was  found  in  either  hall  of  Congress.  Members  presented 
their  petitions  with  great  reluctance ;  and,  as  late  as  the  twenty-eighth 
of  December,  1837,  Mr.  Calhoun  rejoiced  that  "every  senator,  without 
exception,"  had  confessed  himself  opposed  to  the  agitation.  A  bill  to 
punish,  by  severe  penalties,  any  postmaster  who  should  knowingly  put 
into  the  mail  any  incendiary  publication  directed  to  the  South,  had,  by 
the  casting  vote  of  Vice-President  Van  Buren,  been  ordered  to  a  third 
reading.  The  Senate  declined  to  refer,  or  in  any  way  act  upon,  the 
numerous  petitions  presented,  while  the  House,  refusing  to  read,  print, 
or  refer,  laid  them  forthwith  upon  the  table.  In  January,  1838,  the 
Senate,  by  a  majority  of  four  to  one,  adopted  a  series  of  resolutions  de- 
nouncing the  Abolition  movement  "on  whatever  ground  or  pretext 
urged  forward,  political,  moral,  or  religious,"  as  insulting  to  the  South, 
and  dangerous  to  her  domestic  peace  and  tranquillity ;  and  further,  con- 
demning all  efforts  toward  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  and  the  Territories  as  a  breach  of  good  faith,  a  just  cause  of 
serious  alarm  to  the  States  in  which  slavery  exists,  and  of  most  mis- 
chievous tendency.  At  the  following  session,  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, by  a  majority  of  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty,  passed  resolu- 
tions, stronger,  if  possible,  than  these,  and,  some  time  later,  censured, 
and  almost  expelled,  John  Quincy  Adams,  for  presenting  an  abolition 
petition  looking  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union. 

Outside  of  Congress,  also,  sir,  Abolition  received,  up  to  this  period, 
just  as  little  countenance  or  support.  By  both  of  the  great  political 
parties  it  was  utterly  and  indignantly  repudiated  ;  while  from  none  of 
the  political,  and  scarce  any  of  even  the  religious  journals  and  periodi- 
cals of  the  day,  did  it  find  either  aid  or  comfort.  Especially,  sir,  was 
the  Democratic  party  then  sound  on  this  question.  General  Jackson 
had  already  denounced,  in  strong  language,  officially,  the  "  wucked  and 


HISTORY    OF    THE    ABOLITIOIST    MOVEMENT.  HY 

unconstitutional  attempts  of  tlie  misguided  men,  and  especially  the 
emissaries  from  foreign  parts,"  who  had  originated  the  Abolition  move- 
ment. President  Van  Bui'cn,  in  his  inaugural  address,  had  volunteered 
a  pledge  to  veto  any  bill  looking  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia.  Benton,  Buchanan,  Wright,  Allen,  all  concurred; 
and  voted,  also,  for  the  resolutions  which  passed  the  Senate.  In  Ohio, 
the  Democratic  State  Convention  of  January  8,  1840,  planted  itself 
lirmly  upon  the  rock  of  the  Constitution,  and  taking  high,  and  patriotic 
ground,  condemned  the  efforts  then  being  made  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  "  by  organizing  societies  in  the  free 
States,  as  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  and  destructive  to  the 
harmony  of  the  Union  ;"  and  resolving  that,  "  We,  as  citizens  of  a  free 
State,  had  no  right  to  interfere"  with  slavery  elsewhere,  denounced  the 
Abolition  movement  and  Abolition  societies,  declaring,  that  while  they 
"  ought  to  be  discountenanced  by  every  lover  of  peace  and  concord,  no 
sound  Democrat  would  have  any  part  or  lot  with  them."  It  was,  also, 
further  resolved,  as  if  in  the  very  spirit  of  prophecy,  that  "  political 
Abolitionism  was  but  ancient  Federalism,  under  a  new  guise,  and  only 
a  new  device  for  the  overthrow  of  Democracy." 

These  resolutions,  sir,  were  adopted  with  but  three  dissenting  voices, 
in  a  more  numerous  assemblasje  of  Jeleo;ates  than  had  ever  before  met 
in  the  State. 

[Here  George  W.  Ells,  Esq.,  one  of  the  old  Liberty  (Abolition)  Guard,  inter- 
rupting, said,  that  historical  statements  ought  to  be  correct ;  that  he  had  been  a 
member,  from  Licking  County,  of  the  convention  referred  to,  and  that  he  knew  that 
the  resolutions  quoted  had  never  passed,  but  were  smuggled  into  the  proceedLngs, 
in  order  to  be  circulated  through  the  South,  to  aid  Mr.  Van  Buren.] 

Mr.  Yallandigham  : — Sir,  I  have  before  me  the  official  record  of  the 
proceedings  of  that  convention,  signed  by  the  late  lamented  Thomas  L. 
Hamer,  president  of  the  convention,  a  man  too  candid,  too  brave,  and 
too  true  to  lend  himself  to  so  base  and  detestable  a  fraud  for  any  such 
purpose.  You  libel  the  gallant  dead ;  and  it  is  quite  too  late  in  the 
day,  after  the  lapse  of  fifteen  years,  for  you,  sir,  by  your  own  parol  tes- 
timony, to  seek  to  impeach  the  absolute  verity  of  the  record.  And  I 
repeat  now  again,  and  desire  you  to  hear  and  understand  it,  that  these 
resolutions  did  pass  that  convention,  and  pass,  too,  with  but  three  dis- 
senting voices,  in  that,  the  largest  State  convention  ever  before  assem- 
bled in  Ohio.  And  if  you,  sir,  happened  to  be  one  of  the  three  who 
voted  against  these  resolutions,  I  can  only  say  that  you  had  the  misfor- 
tune to  find  yourself  in  a  very  small  and  most  inglorious  minority.  I 
assert  further,  that  three  weeks  after  that  convention,  Benjamin  Tappan, 
then  a  senator  in  Congress  from  Ohio,  quoting  these  same  resolutions,^ 
and  affirming  the  statement  which  I  have  just  made  concluded  a  speech 


118  vallandigham's  speeches. 

of  remarkable  precision  and  clearness,  by  declining  even  to  present  a 
petition  from  citizens  of  the  State,  praying  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia.* 

A  few  months  later — mark  you,  Mr.  President,  Ohio  then  took  the 
lead  in  denouncing  the  treason  and  fanaticisms  of  Abolition — the  De- 
mocracy of  the  Union,  assembled  in  general  convention  at  Baltimore, 
passed,  without  a  dissenting  vote,  that  memorable  resolution,  penned 
by  that  pure  and  incorruptible  patriot,  Silas  Wright ;  and  which  pene- 
trated then  the  heart  also,  and  not  the  ear  only,  of  every  Democrat,  to 
the  full  and  utmost  significancy  of  every  word  and  letter,  repudiating  , 
"incipient  steps,"  even  by  Congress,  in  relation  to  "questions  of  sla- 
ver}-," of  every  sort,  as  calculated  to  lead  to  the  most  alarming  and  dan- 
gerous consequences,  and  such  as  ought  not  to  be  countenanced  by  any 
fliend  of  our  political  institutions. 

Such,  Mr.  President,  was  x\bolition  in  the  Xorth,  fifteen  years  ago 
— such  it  is  not  now.  To  the  philosophic  historian,  who,  in  a  future 
age,  shall  sit  amid  the  niins  of  my  country,  to  write  her  decline  and 
faU,  I  leave  the  sad  but  instructive  office  of  tracing  its  progress,  and 
exploring  the  causes  which,  step  by  step,  have  led  to  its  present  por- 
tentous development.     I  propose  but  a  brief  and  hasty  summary. 

SIowlv  emerfrinf;  ti-om  obscuritv  and  odium,  abohtion  besfan  to  fix 
attention,  not  as  hitherto,  by  its  sound  and  fury,  but,  losing  none  of 
these,  rather  now  by  its  increasing  numbei-s  and  influence.  Designing 
men  soon  foresaw  that,  of  all  the  movements  of  the  day,  none  promised 
so  abundant  and  perhaps  durable  a  harvest  to  him  who  should  organize 
and  discipline  its  wild  crusading  forces  into  a  regular  political  party. 
Fanaticism,  and  a  false  rehgious  zeal,  conjoined  with  that  pestilent,  but 
ever-potent  spirit,  which  is  so  sorely  offended  at  the  mote  that  is  in  our 

*  The  Omo  RESOLmoNS. — "  Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  conventiouy 
Congress  ought  not,  without  the  consent  of  the  people  of  the  District,  and  of  the 
Stales  of  Virginia  and  Maryland,  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia ; 
and  that  the  efforts  now  making,  for  that  pui-pose,  by  organized  societies  in  the 
free  States,  are  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  and  destractive  to  the  har- 
mony of  the  Union. 

"  Resolved,  That  slavery  being  a  domestic  institution,  recognized  by  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  we,  as  citizens  of  a  free  State,  have  no  right  to  inter- 
fere with  it ;  and  that  the  organizing  of  societies  and  associations  in  free  States,  iu 
opposition  to  the  institutions  of  sister  States,  while  productive  of  no  good,  may  be 
the  cause  of  much  mischief;  and  while  such  associations,  for  political  purposes, 
ought  to  be  discountenanced  by  every  lover  of  peace  and  concord,  no  souod  Demo- 
crat %vill  have  part  or  lot  with  them. 

"  Resolved,  That  pohtical  Abolitionism  is  but  ancient  Federalism,  under  a  new 
guise,  and  that  the  political  action  of  anti-slavery  societies  is  only  a  device  for  the 
overthrow  of  Democracy." 


HISTOEY    OF    THE    AEOLITIOX   ilOYEMIl^'T.  119 

I 

brother's  eye,  and  which  makes  each  man  jealous  over  his  neighbor  s 
consciepce,  could  easily  be  an-ayed  under  the  banner  of  sectional  hate 
and  bigotry,  and  thus  a  distinct  political  faction  be  compounded  out  of 
these  elements.  Such  a  party,  sir,  united  by  these,  the  strongest,  though 
not  most  durable  ties,  was  soon  shuffled  together,  and  not  long  after, 
supplanted  the  system  of  affiliated  societies.  It  formed  separate  tickets, 
and,  in  1844,  supported  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  But,  prior  to 
1848,  it  attained  as  a  party  comparatively  small  weight  in  elections. 
The  .vehement  contests  and  grave  political  questions  which  convulsed 
the  two  great  parties  of  the  countiy,  overshadowed  all  interest  in  the 
feeble,  but  still  earnest  and  active  abolition  band ;  but  that  band,  mean- 
time, was  steadily  increasing,  by  accessions,  now  and  then  from  the 
Democrats,  but  chiefly  from  the  "Whigs ;  some  honest  men,  and  the  dis- 
contented and  rejected  spirits  of  each,  naturally  dropping  off,  and  falling 
into  its  ranks.  Abolitionists — many  of  them  styling  themselves,  at  this 
period  in  their  history,  the  "  Liberty  Party,"  gained  now,  in  some  coun- 
ties, the  balance  of  power ;  and  hence  became  there  an  object  of  court- 
ship to  the  other  parties ;  in  Xew  England  yet  earlier,  but  all  over  the 
Xorth,  in  1844,  the  ^Vhig  party  began  to  trim  and  falter  upon  the 
question.  The  defeat  of  Clay^  and  the  annexation  of  Texas,  gave  a  new 
impetus  to  abolition,  and  many  more,  upon  these  pretexts,  fell  into  its 
rank<.  Meantime,  the  steady,  persistent,  never-Avearying  labors  of  its 
orators  and  press,  full  of  grossly  false  and  exaggei'ated  portraitm-es  of 
slavery,  and  libels  upon  Southern  society,  working  by  day  and  by  night, 
in  the  Church,  the  schools,  and  the  lecture-room,  at  the  public  meeting, 
the  fireside,  and  the  sick-bed,  fomenting  thus  hate  and  jealousy  of  the 
South  everywhere,  and  that,  too,  for  the  most  part,  without  counter- 
acting influence  ti-om  any  quarter,  had  poured  the  leprous  distilment 
deep  into  every  vein  and  artery  of  the  Xorthem  body  politic. 

Just  at  this  point,  sir,  in  the  history  of  the  Abolition  movement,  came 
the  Oreo'on  controversy,  and  after  that  the  ]\Iexican  war,  embroiled  bv 
the  now  terrible  question  of  the  acquisition  of  a  very  large  tract  of 
Mexican  temtoiy.  Pride  or  vanity,  wounded  by  the  settlement  of  the 
Oregon  boundary  at  forty-nme,  ambition,  disappointed  of  office,  the 
nomination  of  Generals  Cass  and  Taylor  in  1848,  and  the  manifestly 
approaching  dissolution  of  the  T\'hig  party,  all  contributed  to  throw  a 
large  portion  of  that  party  in  the  Xorth,  and  not  a  few  from  the  Demo- 
cratic host,  into  the  ranks  of  the  Abolitionists ;  who,  swelled  now  by 
such  great  accessions,  threw  oft'  wholly  the  odious  name  of  Abolition, 
and,  organizing  into  one  body,  under  a  new  title,  at  Buffalo,  announced 
Martin  Van  Buren  as  their  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  In  the  midst 
of  all  this  chaos  in  the  political  elements,  arose  that  pernicious  bubble, 
the  "  W  ilmot  Proviso,"  which,  convulsmg  the  country  for  more  than  four 


120  VALLANDlCiHAJl's    SPEECHES. 

years,  in  its  various  forms,  had  well-nigh  precipitated  us  headlong  into 
the  bottomless  gulf  of  disunion.  _ 

Assuming  now  the  specious  name  of  "  Free  Soil,"  and  disguising  its 
odious  principles  and  its  true  purposes,  under  the  false  pretence  of  No 
Extension  of  Slavery,  the  Abolition  party  addressed  itself  to  minds  full 
now  of  hate  toward  the  South  and  her  institutions,  and  ready  alike  to 
forget  the  true  mission  of  a  political  party,  and  the  hmitations  of  the 
Constitution.  But  the  united  patriotism,  talent,  and  worth  of  the  North 
and  South  rallied  to  the  rescue  of  this  the  last  grand  experiment  of  free 
govemment,  from  the  thick  darkness  of  failure  and  of  ruin  by  the 
pan'icidal  hands  of  its  own  children.  The  Compromise  of  1550  followed  : 
intended  and  believed  to  be  a  final  adjustment  of  this  appalling  contro- 
versy. It  was  designed  to  be  a  covenant  of  peace  forever — sealed  and 
attested  by  the  self-sacrifice  of  Webster,  Clay,  and.  Calhoun,  the  most 
illustrious  triumvirate  of  great  men  and  patriots,  in  any  age  or  any 
country.  But  to  no  purpose  :  the  yawning  gulf  did  not  close  over  them. 
The  origin  of  the  evil  lay  deeper,  and  it  was  not  reached.  No  great 
fjuestion  of  a  like  nature  and  magnitude  was  ever  adjusted  by  a  legislative 
compromise,  in  a  popular  government.  The  evil  lay  in  that  great  .and 
mOvSt  peinicious  error  which  pervaded  and  penetrated  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  Northern  mind,  that  the  men  of  the  North,  if  not  iinder  the  Con- 
stitution, yet,  by  some  "  higher  law"  of  conscience,  had  a  .right,  and,  as 
they  would  escape  that  fire  which  is  not  quenched,  were  bound  to  inter- 
meddle, and,  in  some  way,  to  legislate  for  the  abolition  of  the  "  accursed 
system."  No  act  of  Congress,  no  number  of  acts,  could  heal  a  malady 
like  this,  rooted  in  presumptuous  self-righteousness,  and  aggravated  by 
the  corroding  poison  of  sectional  jealousy  and  hate.  For  such,  sir,  there 
is  no  sweet  oblivious  antidote  in  legislation.  Set  on  fire  by  these  pas- 
sions, applied  now  to  that  case  which,  coming  nighest  home,  appealed 
most  plausibly  and  most  strongly  to  their  impulses  and  their  prejudices, 
a  large  part  of  the  North  resolved  to  render  nugatory  the  chief  slaveiy 
compromise  of  the  Constitution,  by  trampling  under  foot  and  resisting 
or  obstructing  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1850.  And 
three  years  later,  re-enforced  now  by  many  recruits  from  the  Democratic 
ranks,  and  bv  almost  the  entire  Whio-  force  of  the  North,  disbanded 
finally  by  the  overthrow  of  1852,  but  reorganized  in  part  imder  the 
banner  of  Know-Nothingism,  the  x\bolition  handful  of  1835,  swelled  now 
to  a  mighty  host,  rallied  in  defence  of  the  Missouri  Restriction,  and 
shook  the  whole  land  with  a  rocking  tempest  of  popular  commotion, 
more  dangerous  than  even  the  storm  of  1850. 

Here,  then,  gentlemen,  let  me  pause  to  survey  the  true  nature  and 
full  extent  of  the  perils  which  thus  encompass  us,  and  to  inquire  :  What 
remains  to  be  done,  that  they  may  be  averted  ? 


HISTORY    OF    THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  121 

In  January,  1838,  Mr.  Callioun  spoke,  with,  alarm — then  derided  as 
visionary — of  the  danger  which,  to  him,  seemed  ah-eady  as  certain  as  it 
would  be  disastrous,  from  the  continued,  persevering,  uncounteracted 
efforts  of  the  Abolitionists,  imbuing  the  rising  generation  at  the  North 
with  the  belief  that  the  institutions  of  the  South  were  sinful  and  immoral, 
and  that  it  would  be  doing  God  service  to  abolish  them,  even  should  it 
involve  the  destruction  of  .half  her  inhabitants,  as  murderers  and  pirates 
at  best.  Sir,  what  was  then  prophecy,  is  n.ow  history.  More  than  half 
the  present  generation  in  the  North  have  ceased  to  look  upon  Southern 
men  as  brethren.  Taught  to  hate,  first,  the  institations  of  the  South, 
they  have,  very  many  of  them,  by  easy  gradations,  transferred  that 
hatred  to  her  citizens.  Learning  to  abhor  what  they  are  told  is  murder, 
they  have  found  no  principle,  either  in  nature  or  in  morals,  which  impels 
them  to  love  the  murderer  with  fraternal  affection.  Organized  bands 
exist  in  every  Northern  State,  with  branches  in  Canada,  Avhich  make 
slave-stealing  a  business  and  a  boast:  and  that  outrage  which,  if  any 
foreign  State,  or  any  State  of  this  Union  even,  in  any  thing  else,  were 
to  encourage  or  permit  in  any  of  her  citizens,  would,  by  the  whole 
country,  with  one  voice,  be  regarded  as  a  just  cause  of  instant  war  or 
reprisals,  is  every  day  consummated  without  rebuke,  or  by  connivance, 
or  the  direct  sanction  of  many  of  the  members  of  this  Confederacy  ;  by 
school-books,  and  in  school-houses ;  in  the  academies,  colleges,  and 
universities ;  in  the  schools  of  divinity,  medicine,  and  law: — these  same 
sad  lessons  of  hate  and  jealousy  are  every  day  inculcated.  Even  the 
name  and  the  fame  of  a  slaveholding  Washington  have  ceased  to  cause 
a  throb  in  many  a  Northern  heart.  The  entire  press  of  the  North,  in 
journals,  newspapers,  periodicals,  prints,  and  books,  with  not  many  manly 
and  patriotic  exceptions,  has  either  been  silent  or  lent  countenance  and 
support,  knowingly  or  carelessly,  to  the  systematic  and  treasonable 
efforts  of  those  who  are  resolved  to  pull  down  the  fabric  of  this  Union. 
Literature  and  the  arts  are  put  under  conscription,  for  the  same  wicked 
purpose.  Not  a  Northern  poet,  from  Longfellow  and  Bryant,  down  to 
LoAvell,  but  has  sought  inspiration  from  the  black  Helicon  of  Abolition : 
aiid  the  poison  from  a  hundred  thousand  copies  of  false  and  canting 
libels,  in  the  foi'm  of  works  of  fiction,  is  licked  up  from  every  hearthstone, 
while  the  "  Tribune"  of  Greeley — one  among  ten  thousand  "  sold  to  do 
evil,"  at  once  the  tool  and  the  compeer  of  Seward  in  his  traitorous  pur- 
pose to  make  himself  a  name  in  historj^ — the  antithesis  of  Washington 
— by  the  subversion  of  this  Republic — gathering  up,  with  persevering 
and  most  devihsh  diligence,  every  murder,  every  crime,  every  outrage, 
every  act  of  cruelty,  rapine,  or  lust,  upon  white  or  upon  black,  real  or 
forged,  throughout  the  South,  sends  it  forth  winged  with  venom  and 
malice,  as  a  faithful  witness  of  the  true  and  general  state  of  Southern 


122  VALLANDIGIIAM  S    SPEECHES. 

society,  and  the  legitimate  fruit  of  slaveholdlng.  In  the  public  lecture 
and  anniversary  address ;  at  the  concert  hall,  and  upon  the  boards  of  the 
theatre ;  nay,  even  at  the  festivals  of  our  ancient  charitable  orders,  this 
same  dark  spirit  of  mischief  is  ever  present,  dropping  pestilence  from 
his  Avings.  Even  history  is  corrupted,  and  figures  marshalled  into  a 
huge  lie,  to  compass  the  same  treacherous  end. 

Here,  again,  too,  the  clergy,  and  the  Church,  gentlemen,  mindful  less 
than  ever  of  their  true  province  and  vocation,  have,  one  by  one,  joined 
in  the  crusade,  till  uineteen-twentieths  of  Northern  pulpits  resound  every 
Sabbath,  in  sermon  or  prayer,  -with  imprecation  upon  slaveholders. 
Already  has  disunion  and  consequent  strife  ensued  in  all  the  chief  reli- 
gious sects,  three  only  excepted.  Outside  of  these — and  sometimes 
■within  them,  too^ — the  religion  of  the  Bible  is  but  too  often  superseded 
by  the  gospel  of  Abolition,  and  the  way  of  salvation  taught  to  lie  through 
sympathy  Avith  that  distant  portion  of  the  African  race  which  is  held  in 
bondage  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  Thus  the  spirit  of  persecution 
is  superadded  to  tlie  jealousies  of  sectional  position,  and  the  furnace  of 
hate  heated  seven  times  hotter  than  is  wont. 

They  who  would  not  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  express  requirements  of 
the  Constitution,  are  beguiled  and  drawn  astray  by  the  hollow  pretence 
of  Opposition  to  the  Extension  of  Slavery — a  pretence  alike  false  and 
unmanly,  and  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  Constitutional  compact,  and 
the  principle  which  forbids  to  intermeddle  with  slavery  in  the  States. 

Others,  sir,  who  may  care  nothing  for  the  sinfulness  or  immorality  of 
slaveholdlng,  are  wrought  to  jealousy  by  the  false  and  impudent  outcry 
against  the  "  aggressions  of  the  slave-power,"  "  the  grasping  spirit  of  the 
South,"  "  Southern  bluster  and  bravado ;"  and  many  an  arrant  coward 
hires  himself  to  be  Avritten  down  a  hero,  for  his  wondrous  courao-e  in 
lending  the  eye  a  terrible  aspect  on  his  own  hustings,  at  the  mention  of 
a  "  fire-eater"  from  the  Carohnas,  or  repelling,  indignantly,  six  weeks 
after  the  offence,  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  the  insolence  of  some  "  slave- 
dealing"  member  from  Virginia,  who  is,  perhaps,  at  the  moment,  a  hun- 
dred miles  from  the  capitol.  Thus  the  claim  of  the  South  to  participa- 
tion in  the  common  territory  purchased  by  the  common  blood  and  trea- 
sure of  the  Union — nay,  even  her  demaaid  that  the  solemn  compact  of 
the  Constitution  be  fulfilled  and  her  fugitives  restored  to  her,  are 
denounced  alike  as  arrogant  "  slave-driving"  assaults  and  aggressions 
upon  the  rights  of  the  North. 

Others,  again,  are  persuaded  that  the  South  is  weak,  is  unwilling,  and 
dare  not  resist — is  afraid  of  insurrection,  and  dependent  for  safety  and 
bread  and  existence  upon  the  proverbial  fertility  and  magnanimity  of 
New  England.  As  if  no  Henry,  no  Lee,  no  Jefterson,  no  Pinckney,  no 
Sumpter,  no  Hayne,  no  Laurens,  no  Carroll,  no  George  Washington  had 


HISTOEY    OF    THE    AEOLITIOIi    MOVEMENT.  123 

ever  lived — as  if  the  spirit  of  Marion's  men  lingered  not  yet  upon  the 
banks  of  Santee,  and  the  fierce  courage  of  the  Butler  who  rose  pale  and 
corpse-like  from  the  bed  of  death,  to  lead  the  Palmetto  regiment  to 
battle  at  Churubusco,  foremost  in  the  ranks  and  "  nearest  the  flashing  of 
the  guns,"  was  already  become  extinct. 

The  political  parties,  also,  at  the  North,  gentlemen,  have  faltered,  and 
some  of  them  fallen,  before  Abolition.  The  AVhig  party,  bargaining 
with,  courting,  and  seeking  to  absorb  it  into  its  own  ranks,  has,  itself 
at  last,  been  swallowed  up  and  lost.  Political  Temperance  and  Know- 
Nothingism  are  rapidly  drifting  into  the  same  voxtex.  The  spirit  of 
Anti-Masonry'  transmigrated,  some  years  ago,  into  the  opaque  body  of 
Abolitionism.  Fourierism,  Anti-Rentism,  the  party  devoted  to  Women's 
Rights,  and  all  the  other  isms  of  the  day,  born  of  the  same  generating 
principle,  are  already  fully  assimilated  to  their  common  parent :  for  all 
these  isms,  sir,  like  the  nerves  of  sense,  run  in  pau-s.  Even  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  never  losing  its  identity,  never  ceasing  to  be  national,  and 
even  now  the  sole  hope  of  the  country,  if  it  will  but  return  to  its  ancient 
mission  and  discipline — the  only  organized  body  round  which  all  true 
conservatives  and  friends  of  the  Constitution  and  Union  may  rally — 
has,  nevertheless,  in  whole  or  in  part,  at  some  period  or  another,  in 
every  State,  cowered  before  or  tampered  with  this  dark  spectre. 

Just  such,  too,  as  public  feeling  in  the  North  is,  so  is  its  legislation. 
Vermont  has  passed  a  law  repealing,  in  eflect,  within  her  limits,  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1850,  and  abrogating  so  much  of  the  Constitu- 
tion as  requires  the  rendition  of  fugitives  from  service.  Connecticut, 
enacting  a  similar  statute,  has  gone  a  step  farther,  and  outraged  every 
dictate  of  justice,  in  the  eJTort  to  make  it  effectual.  Massachusetts,  the 
"  model  Commonwealth"  of  the  times,  improving  yet  upon  the  work  of 
her  sister  States,  provides,  also,  that  whatsoever  member  of  her  bar 
shall  dare  appear  in  behalf  of  the  claimant  of  a  fugitive  slave,  shall  ig- 
nominiously  be  stricken  from  her  court  rolls,  and  forbidden  to  practise 
within  her  limits.  Legislation  of  a  kindred  character  exists,  sir,  in 
other  States  also;  and  New  England  will,  doubtless,  yet  find  humble 
imitators  even  in  the  West.  Already,  indeed,  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Wisconsin  has  deliberately  released  from  her  penitentiary,  upon  habeas 
corpus,  a  prisoner  convicted,  on  indictment  before  a  United  States 
court,  of  resisting  the  laws  and  officers  of  the  United  States  in  a  slave 
case,  Judges,  elsewhere,  have  held  that  no  citizen  of  the  United  States 
living  South  may  dare  set  his  foot,  with  a  slave,  upon  the  northwest 
shore  of  the  Ohio,  at  low-water  mark  even,  without  by  that  act,  though 
but  for  a  moment,  and  from  necessity,  working  instant  emancipatioji  of 
the  slave.  Not  many  months  ago,  a  mingled  mob  of  negroes,  white' 
and  black,  at  Salem,  in  Ohio,  entered  a  railroad  train,  and  by  violence 


124  VALLANDIG ham's    SPEECHES. 

tore  from  the  family  of  a  slaveliolder,  passing  through  the  State  from 
necessity,  and  at  forty  miles  an  hour,  the  nurse  of  his  infant  child.  A 
Massachusetts  legislature  has  demanded  of  her  Executive  the  removal 
of  an  able,  meritorious,  and  upright  judge,  for  the  conscientious  dis- 
charge, within  her  limits,  of  the  duties  of  an  office  which  he  held  under 
authority  of  the  United  States ;  and  a  Massachusetts  ecclesiastical  con- 
clave,  three  hundred  in  numher,  rose  as  one  man  on  the  announcement 
of  the  outrage,  and  shouted  till  the  house  rang  again  with  their  plaudits. 
And  a  Massachusetts  university  rejected,  also,  the  same  judge,  for  the 
same  cause,  when  proposed  for  a  professorship  in  the  institution. 

Thus,  sir,  within  little  more  than  two  years  from  the  death  of  her 
noblest  son — whose  whole  life,  and  whose  dvino:  labors  were  exhausted 
in  defending  the  Union  and  holding  the  Commonwealth  of  his  adoption 
up  to  the  full  measure  of  her  Revolutionary  patriotism  and  greatness — 
has  the  star  of  Massachusetts  been  seen  to  fall  from  heaven  and  beorin 
to  plunge  into  the  utter  blackness  of  disunion.  In  vain  now,  sir,  from 
the  grave  of  the  Statesman  of  Marshfield  there  comes  up  the  warning 
cry,  "  let  her  shrink  back ;  let  her  hold  others  back,  if  she  can ;  at  any 
rate,  let  her  keep  herself  back  from  this  gulf,  full  at  once  of  fire  and 
blackness — full,  as  far  as  human  foresight  can  scan,  or  human  imagina- 
tion fathom,  of  the  fire  and  the  blood  of  civil  war,  and  of  the  thick 
darkness  of  general  political  disgrace,  ignominy,  and  ruin."  No ;  she 
is  fallen.  Sumner  has  supplanted  Winthrop  ;  and  a  AVilson  crawled  up 
into  the  seat  which  Webster  once  adorned. 

And  add,  now,  to  all  this,  gentlemen,  that,  already,  that  portentous 
and  most  perilous  evil,  against  which  the  Father  of  his  Country  so 
solemnly  and  earnestly  warned  his  countiymen,  a  party  bounded  by 
geographical  lines — a  Northern  party,  standing  upon  a  Northern  Plat- 
form, doing  battle  for  Northern  issues,  and  relying  solely  for  success  upon 
appeals  to  Northern  prejudices  and  Northern  jealousies,  is  now,  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history,  fully  organized  and  consolidated  in  our  midst. 
Add  farther,  that,  to  the  Thirty-Fourth  Congress,  fourteen  Senators  and 
a  majority  of  Picpresentatives  have  been  chosen,  who  in  name  or  in  fact, 
are  Abolitionists ;  Ohio  contributing  to  this  dark  host  her  entire  dele- 
gation in  House  and  Senate,  one  only  excepted ;  and  thus,  for  the  first 
time,  also,  since  the  organization  of  our  Government,  has  the  House  of 
Representatives  been  converted  into  a  vast  Abolition  conventicle,  full 
of  men  picked  out  for  their  hatred  of  the  South,  and  who  cannot  be 
true  to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  without  treachery  to  the  ex- 
pectations and  the  purposes  of  those  who  elected  them.  And  then 
reflect  yet  further,  that  this  vast  and  terrible  magazine  of  explosive 
elements  is  gathered  together  just  upon  the  eve  of  a  Presidential  elec- 
tion, with  all  its  multiplied  and  convulsing  interests ;  and  that  soon 


mSTOKY    OF   THE    ABOLITIO]Sr   .MOVEMENT.  125 

Kansas  will  tnock  for  admission  into  the  Union,  thus  surely  precipita- 
tino-  the  crisis ;  and  who,  tell  me,  I  pray  you,  may  foresee  what  shall  be 
the  history  of  this  Republic  at  the  end  of  two  yeai-s  from  to-day  ? 

All  this,  gentlemen,  the  spirit  of  Abolition  has  accomplished  in 
twenty  years  of  continued  and  exhausting  labors  of  every  sort.  But, 
iu  all  that  time,  not  one  convert  has  it  made  in  the  South ;  not  one 
slave  emancipated,  except  by  larceny,  and  in  fraud  of  the  solemn  com- 
pacts of  the  Constitution.  Meantime,  public  opinion  has  wholly,  radi- 
cally changed  in  the  South.  The  South  has  ceased  to  denounce,  ceased, 
to  condemn  slavery — ceased  even  to  palliate — and  begun  now,  almost 
as  one  man,  to  defend  it  as  a  great  moral,  social,  and  political  blessing. 
The  bitter  and  proscriptive  warfare  of  twenty  years  has  brought  forth 
its  natural  and  legitimate  fruit  in  the  South.  Exasperation,  hate,  and 
revenge,  are  every  day  ripening  into  fullest  maturity  and  strength ;  and, 
throuo'hout  her  entire  extent,  she  awaits  now  but  the  action  of  the 
North  to  unite  in  solemn  league  and  covenant  to  resist  aggression  even 
unto  blood. 

But  the  South,  sir,  has  forborne  a  little.  I  say,  she  has  forborne  a 
little.  She  has  not  yet  associated  and  formed  political  parties  to  put 
down  Masonry  and  Odd  Fellowship  in  the  free  States  and  in  the  Ter- 
ritories, upon  the  pretext  that  these  institutions  are  sinful,  and  im- 
moral. She  has  not  yet  organized  societies,  and  fostered  and  pro- 
tected them  by  her  legislation,  to  steal  that  which  our  law  recognizes 
as  property,  and  refused  restitution  on  the  pretext  that  by  the  "  higher 
law"  of  conscience,  no  right  of  property-  exists  in  the  thing  stolen. 
Neither  sir,  has  any  Southern  State,  no,  not  even  "fire-eating"  South 
Carolina,  sought  as  yet  to  compensate  herself  for  the  fugitives  which  we 
have  abducted,  by  enacting  laws  to  encourage  the  slave-trade,  by  pun- 
ishing with  fine  and  imprisonment  in  her  penitentiary  for  years  any  one 
of  her  citizens  who  should  aid  in  enforcina;  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  against  the  traffic,  striking  from  her  court  rolls  any  attorney 
within  her  limits,  who  should  appear  in  behalf  of  the  prosecution,  and 
excluding  all  who  hold  the  office  of  United  States  Commissioner  or 
Judge,  from  any  office  or  appointment  under  her  authority.  How  long 
before  all  this  shall  have  been  done,  is  known  to  Him  only  whose 
omniscient  eye  penetrates  and  illumines  the  clouds  and  thick  darkness 
of  the  future. 

Thus,  then,  Mr.  President,  by  little  and  little  at  first,  but  now,  as 
with  a  flood,  fraternal  affection  is  wasted  away;  hate  and  jealousy  and 
discord,  nourished  and  educated  into  maturest  development ;  and,  one 
by  one,  the  real  and  strong  cords  which  bind  us  together  as  a  Con- 
federacy snapped  asunder,  or  stretched  to  their  utmost  tension.  It 
needs  no   spirit  of  prophecy,  not  even  a  human  sagacity  above  the 


126  VALLANDIG ham's   SPEECHES. 

ordinary  level,  to  foretell  just  how  long  the  habits,  forms,  and  paper 
parchments  of  a  union  can  last  when  its  life-giving  principle  and 
nourishing  and  sustaining  virtue  are  wasted  and  gone.  Sir,  he  is  yet 
but  in  the  swaddling  bands  of  infancy,  who  docs  not  already  see  that 
there  is  wanting  but  some  strong  convulsion,  or  even  but  some  sudden  jar 
in  the  system,  to  hurl  us  headlong  down  into  the  abyss  of  disunion. 

I  know,  gentlemen,  that  to  many  all  this  is  as  "  a  twice-told  talc, 
vexing  the  dull  ear  of  a  drowsy  man."  They  hearkened  not  to  the 
voice  of  Webster,  Clay,  and  Calhoun,  while  yet  among  the  living; 
neither  would  they  believe,  though  these  three  men  rose  from  the  dead. 
Being  dead,  they  yet  speak.  The  dead  of  all  ages  speak.  All  history 
lifts  up  its  warning  voice.  Livy  and  Tacitus  are  full  of  saddest  and 
most  instructive  teachino-s.  But  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  It  is  not 
in  their  pages  that  we  are  to  I'ead  the  lessons  of  that  danger  which 
threatens  us  with  destruction.  There  has  been  to  us  no  slow  and 
gi-adual  progression  of  five  hundred  years  to  the  full  growth  and  stature 
of  a  great  nation ;  neither  is  it  in  resei-ve  for  us  to  pass  through  the 
mellowing  and  softening  gradations  of  luxury,  vice,  corruption,  and 
enervation  for  five  hundred  years  more,  to  our  final  foil  as  an  empire. 
No.  The  history  of  Greece  is  the  true  study  for  the  American  states- 
man. There  he  will  find  the  chiefest  lessons  of  political  wisdom, 
adapted  to  our  peculiar  exigencies. ,  He  will  learn  there  how  internal 
dissension  and  discord  may  prostrate  a  state  in  the  full  vigor  of  its 
manhood ;  and,  indeed,  that  it  is  only  in  the  manhood  of  a  confederacy 
that  there  is  strength  enouffh,  and  enerofv  enouo-h,  in  the  members,  to 
rend  eadi  other  in  pieces,  and  that  in  the  decadence  of  a  state,  in  decay 
and  atony,  it  is  a  Caesar  within,  or  a  Macedonian  phalanx,  or  Roman 
legions  ft-ora  without,  which  overwhelm  the  state.  In  Thucydides,  he 
may  learn  how  a  thirty  years'  civil  Avar  exhausted  Greece,  and  prepared 
her  first  for  the  haughty  domination  of  the  conquering  member  of  the 
confederacy ;  and  finally,  for  that  yoke  of  foreign  despots  which  galls 
and  burns  into  her  neck  to  this  day. 

Let  us  improve  these  lessons.  It  is  not  yet  too  late  to  be  saved.  The 
current  may  still  be  turned  back,  and  the  Union  restored  to  its  former 
sound  and  healthy  condition,  though  many  a  gaping  scar  shall  attest 
the  wounds  she  has  received  from  the  hands  of  her  own  children. 

What  then  remaixs  to  be  done  ? — I  answer  this  momentous  ques- 
tion, Mr.  President,  by  declaring  first,  what  will  not  heal  the  sick  man 
of  America. 

First,  then,  closing  our  eyes  and  our  ears  to  the  truth,  and  laughing 
all  danger  to  scorn,  will  not  do  it.  The-  scoffs  and  derision  of  the  dilu- 
vian  world  did.  not  stay  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep,  nor  seal  up  the 
windows  of  heaven. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    ABOLITION    MOVEMENT.  127 

Professions  and  resolutions  of  love?,  for  the  Union  and  Constitution, 
whetlicr  hypocritical  or  sincere,  will  not  do  it,  while,  at  the  same 
moment,  we  strike  the  blow  which  destroys  both.  Nor  will  legislative 
compromises  and  finalities,  nor  yet  national  conventions  and  j)residen- 
tial  elections.     None  of  these. 

Least  of  all,  sir,  will  platforms,  of  themselves,  avail  any  thing.  Time 
was  when  they  had  a  meaning,  and  when  the  partisan  who  repudiated 
or  doubted  even^an  abstract  principle,  wa,s  stricken  down  by  a  surer 
and  heavier  blow  of  popular  wrath  than  he  who  "  bolted"  a  nomination. 
But  that  day  is  past.  The  best  of  platforms  is  now  too  often  but  a 
spider's  snare ;  the  weak  and  unsuspecting  house-fly  is  caught  and 
devoured,  the  stout,  blue-bottle,  carrion  insect  breaks  through  its 
meshes.  A  sound  system  of  faith  is,  indeed,  still  proclaimed,  but 
mental  reservation  is  now  tolerated.  The  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  sub- 
scribed, but  a  wide  margin  and  much  space  between  the  lines  allowed 
for  liberal  interpretation.  Obedience  is  no  longer  ^pected  or  re- 
quired to  the  platform,  if  the  professor  will  but  support  the  candidate. 
And  thus,  sir,  the  aged  worshipper  who  lingers  yet  around  the  altar, 
and  the  simple-minded  convert  of  yesterday,  whose  burning  faith 
receives  the  creed  as  an  enunciation  of  eternal  principles,  the  sacred 
canon  of  political  scripture,  are  alike  amazed  to  learn  from  the  organ 
of  the  oecumenical  cauncil,  interpreting  by  authority,  that  it  is  only  the 
gospel  according  to  Judas,  whereby  a  general  amnesty  is  proclaimed 
to  all  rebels  and  deserters  ;-^a  cumbrous  but  convenient  piece  of 
machinery,  whereby  apostates  may  be  restored,  if  not  to  favor,  at  least 
to  position  and  office  in  the  party.  Witness  the  bold  and  impudent 
fraud  of  the  platform  promulgated  by  the  Grand  Council  of  the  Know- 
Nothiiigs  of  Philadelphia,  which  yet  a  subordinate  State  Council  of  the 
same  Order,  assembled  at  Cleveland,  and  bound  by  the  most  stringent 
oaths  to  obedience,  had  assumed,  in  advance,  to  repudiate.  And  need 
I  but  allude  to  that  State  Democratic  Convention  of  Ohio,  which, 
resolving  to  adhere  to  and  support  the  Baltimore  platform,  rugged  all 
over  as  it  is,  with  denunciations'  of  all  and  every  attempt,  of  whatsoever 
shape,  or  color,  or  pretence,  in  Congress  or  out  of  it,  to  keep  up  the 
slavery  agitation,  did  yet,  with  amiable  and  most  refi'eshing  consistency, 
resolve  that  the  people  of  Ohio  would  use  all  power,  under  the  Con- 
stitution, "to  prevent  the  increase,  to  mitigate,  Sindi  finally  to  eradicate 
— tear  up  by  the  roots — the  evil  of  slavery." 

Either  away,  then,  with  platforms,  at  least  as  a  sanative  process,  and 
until  a  sounder  public  virtue  be  restored,  or  require  a  strict  and  ready 
and  honest  obedience  to  the  principles  which  they  proclaim. 

What  then  remains  to  be  done  ? — I  answer,  first,  that  whatever  it  may 
be,  it  is  to  be  done  by  and  through  the  Democratic  party,  and  the 


128  VALLAIs^DIGllAM'b    SPEECHES. 

national  Wliigs  and  others  wlio  may  act  with  it  in  this  crisis;  for, 
"  wlieu  bad  men  combine,  good  men  must  associate."  There  is  no 
hope,  none,  in  any  other  organization.  To  that  party,  therefore,  and 
tlirough  it  to  all  true  patriots  and  conservatives,  I  address  myself,  and 
answer  further :  We  must  return  to  the  principles,  follow  the  practice, 
imitate  the  good  faith  and  fraternal  affection,  and  restore  the  distinc- 
tions with  whii'h  our  ancestors  set  out  at  the  commencement  of  this 
government.  We  rnust  learn  a  wise  and  wholesome  conservatism  ;  learn 
that  all  progress  is  not  reform,  and  that  the  wildest  and  most  pernicious 
and  most  dangerous  of  all  follies  is  to  attempt  to  square  our  political 
institutions  and  our  legislation  by  mere  abstract,  theoretical,  and  math- 
ematically exact,  but  impracticable  truths.  We  must  remember,  also,  our 
true  mission  as  a  political  party,  and  retrace  our  steps  from  outside  the 
territories  of  the  lyceuni  and  the  Church,  and  drive  back  the  clergy 
and  the  Church  to  their  own  domain.  W^o  must  build  up  again  the 
partitions  whicJi  separate  sacred  things  from  profane,  and  begin  once 
more  to  ^'■Render  unto  Cccsar  the  things  thai  are  Cccsar''s,  and  unto  God 
the  things  that  are  God's.''"'  We  must  set  out  again  to  pronounce  upon 
political  questions,  without  essaying  to  try  them  by  the  touchstone  of 
our  own  peculiar  notions  of  moral  or  divine  truth,  and  thus  relegate 
temperance  to  the  voluntary  association,  religion  to  the  Church,  and, 
slavery  to  the  judgment  and  conscience  of  those  in  whose  midst  it 
exists,  or  is  souo-ht  to  be  established,  castinof  aside  that  false  and  dan- 
gerous  and  most  presumptuous  self-delusion,  that  we  are  to  give  account, 
each  one  as  citizens,  for  the  sins  or  immoralities  of  our  fellow-men. 
Slavery,  indeed,  sir,  where  it  exists,  or  to  the  people  among  whom  it  is 
proposed  to  introduce  it,  may  be,  and  it  is  to  thein,  a  political  subject 
in  part.  To  us  of  the  North,  it  is  and  can  be  none  other  than  an  ethical 
or  religious  question.  For,  disguise  and  falsify  it  as  you  will;  marshal 
and  array  your  figures  and  your  facts  to  lie  never  so  grossly,  it  is  the 
sinfulness' and  immorality  of  slaveholdino-  as  viewed  bv  the  Northern 
mind,  and  this  alone,  which  has  stirred  the  people  of  the  North  to  such 
a  height  of  folly  and  madness.  And  yet,  if  immoral,  it  concerns  only 
the  people  of  the  States  and  Territories  where  it  exists ;  if  sinful,  they 
only  are  the  offenders,  and  even  if  a  political  evil,  it  is  they  alone  who 
feel  the  curse.  It  is,  therefore,  and  can  be  of  no  possible  concern  to  us, 
except,  indeed,  upon  the  principle  of  that  self-sufficient,  self-righteous, 
and  most  pernicious  egoism  Avhicli  it  is  time  now  to  purge  out  of  the 
system. 

But  a  high  and  imperative  constitutional  obligation,  also,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, devolves  here  upon  the  Democratic  party. 

The  accidents  and  the  necessities  of  its  settlement  determined  the 
political    character   of  this    continent,    and    divided   it   into    separate 


HISTORY    OF   THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  129 

colonies,  as  perfectly  independent,  one  of  the  other,  as  any  foreign 
states.  A  common  subjection  to  the  crown  of  Great  Britain  gave  the 
first  notion  of  a  common  Federal  Government;  and  the  aggressions 
of  that  ■  crown,  and  of  Parliament,  compelling  civil  war,  forced  our 
fathers  into  a  union  and  articles  of  confederation.  The  Constitution 
of  1789  extended  the  powers  and  the  efficiency,  but  did  not  alter  the 
nature  of  the  General  Government.  That  instrument,  sir,  was  framed 
by  delegates  appointed  not  by  the  old  Congress,  but  by  the  States, 
as  sovereign  and  independent  communities.  State  conventions  ratified 
it;  and  it  Avas  binding  only  as  between  those  States  which  acceded  to 
it.  They  consented  to  yield  up  to  a  common  government,  certain 
delegated  powers,  for  the  good  of  the  whole ;  reserving  all  others,  each 
to  itself.  We  are  a  Confederacy,  sir,  of  sovereign,  distinct,  independent 
States ;  in  all  things  not  brought  into  the  common  fund  of  power,  just 
as  thoi'oughly  foreign  to  each  other  (except  only  in  a  common  language 
and  fraternal  affection),  and  as  subject  to  the  obligations  and  comities 
of  the  law  of  nations,  as  France  and  England.  With  the  domestic 
police  and  institutions  of  Kentuckj^  or  any  other  State,  the  people  of 
Ohio  have  no  more  right  to  intermeddle,  than  with  the  laws  or  form 
of  government  in  Russia.  Slavery  in  the  South  is  to  them  as  polygamy 
in  the  Turkish  Empire ;  and  for  the  political  evils,  or  the  sinfulness  and 
immorality  of  the  one,  they  are  in  nowise  more  responsible  than  for 
the  other.  Or — to  select  the  same  subject-matter — they  have  no  more 
right  to  interfere  with,  nor  are  they  in  any  degree  more  accountable  for, 
the  continuance  of  slavery  in  Virginia,  than  for  its  existence  in  Persia. 
Neither,  sir,  have  the  people  of  the  Northern  States  any  greater  right, 
under  the  Constitution,  to  deny  admission  into  the  Union  to  a  State, 
because  its  laws  sanction  involuntary  servitude,  or  to  prescribe  that 
slaveiy  shall  not  be  tolerated  in  a  territory,  than  to  abolish  it  in  a  State 
already  in  the  Union.  The  converse  of  this  proposition  is  sheer,  rank, 
unmixed,  unanointed  Federalism — ^just  the  Federalism  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,  who,  in  the  convention  of  1787,  would  have  made  the  States 
wholly  subordinate  to  the  General  Government — mere  adjuncts — "  cor- 
porations for  local  purposes."  The  reasons,  sir,  are  obvious,  and  they 
are  conclusive.  It  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Democratic  theory, 
and  of  our  institutions,  that  to  the  people  of  each  particular  State, 
county,  township,  city,  and  village,  shall  be  committed,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, the  exclusive  regulation  of  their  more  immediate  and  local  affairs. 
In  other  Avords,  that  power,  whenever  it  is  practicable,  shall  be  diffused 
to  the  utmost,  and  never  centralized  beyond  urgent  necessity.  Again, 
the  only  limitation  prescribed  in  the  Constitution,  for  the  fitness  of  a 
State  for  fellowship  with  us,  is  that  such  State  shall  establish  a  "  repub- 
lican" or  representative  form  of  government.  Now,  it  is  too  late  tc 
9 


1 30  tallaxdigham's  speeches. 

allege,  at  this  dar,  and  quite  too  absurd,  that  the  existence  of  the 
domestic  institution  of  slavcrj-  in  a  State  makes  its  form  of  govemniei.t 
anti-republican,  and.  therefore,  unconstitutional.  Such  an  argument  is 
not  worth  a  serious  refutation.  Again  :  The  territories  are  the  common 
property  of  the  States  in  their  Federal  capacity,  purchased  by  the  com- 
mon blood  and  treasure  of  all,  and  as  much  the  property  of  South 
Carolina  as  of  Massachusetts.  They  are  tenants  in  common  of  this 
property ;  and  for  one  State  to  demand  the  exclusion  of  another  from 
participation  in  their  use  in  common,  in  eveiy  respect,  is  arrogant  and 
unfounded  assumption  of  superiority;  and  fifty-fold  more  offensive, 
when  the  pharisaic  pretence  is  set  up  that  they  are  more  holy  than  that 
other  State,  whose  inhabitants  are  sinners  before  God  exceedingly,  and 
who  would  pollute  the  territory,  by  the  introduction  of  their  wicked- 
ness upon  its  soil.;  assuming  thus  to  be  keeper  of  the  conscience  and 
custodian  of  the  morals  of  the  people  of  the  territory,  putting  on  the 
robes,  and  ascending  into  the  iudixment-seat  of  the  Almiffhtv.  Sir,  if 
the  inhabitants  of  Cape  Cod  are  not  satisfied  with  the  coparcenary,  let 
them  seek,  by  partition,  to  hold  in  severalty ;  and,  obtaining  thus  the 
very  small  and  almost  infinitesimal  portion  which  is  their  share,  exert 
over  it  such  acts  of  ownership  as  to  them  may  seem  meet ;  but  not 
attempt  insolently  to  take  possession  and  control  of  the  whole. 

Manifestly,  then,  sir,  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question  finds  no 
warrant  or  countenance,  but  direct  and  emphatic  condemnation,  in  the 
Constitution.  That  part  of  the  instniment  which  apportions  the  repre- 
sentation and  taxation  of  slaves,  for  the  most  part  executes  itself,  and 
admits  only  of  direct  attack  by  amendment  or  nullification.  The  clause 
which  empowers  Congress  to  prohibit  the  slave-trade,  has  long  since 
been  quietly  carried  into  effect ;  and  the  South  has  never  sought  to  dis- 
turb it.  The  sole  remaining  instance  in  which  Congress  may  legislate 
in  reference  to  slavery,  is  for  the  extradition  of  fugitives.  From  its  very 
nature,  sir,  this  presents  a  capital  point  for  assault  by  Abolitionists. 
Lons:  before  the  act  of  J  850,  they  had,  by  state  legislation,  or  public 
odium,  rendered  nugator}'  the  act  of  1793,  and  were  laboring  for  its 
direct  repeal  by  Congress.  They  openly  repudiated  that  part  of  the 
Constitution  upo;i  which  it  was  founded;  and,  as  early  as  1843,  a  gen- 
eral convention  of  Abolitionists,  assembled  at  Buffalo,  and  composed  of 
the  ablest  and  most  distinguished  members  of  the  party,  resolved  that 
whenever  called  upon  tp  swear  to  support  the  Constitution,  they  would, 
by  mental  reserA-ation,  regard  that  clause  in  it  as  utterly  null  and  void, 
and  forming  no  part  of  the  instrument.*     Nevertheless,  sir,  in  the  ad- 

*  The  Buffalo  Resolution,  1843,  offeredhy  a  eommitiee  of  which  Salmon  P.Chase, 
of  Ohio,  was  a  member. — '^'^  Resolved,  That  we  hereby  give  it  to  be  distinotlv  under- 


HISTORY   OF   THE    ABOLITIOX    MOVEiEEXT.  131 

justment  of  1850,  pro\asion  was  made  to  enforce  this  solemn  compact 
And  hence,  the  popular  tumults,  the  mobs,  the  forcible  rescues,  and  the 
nullifying  acts  of  the  New  England  States,  and  other  parts  of  the  North, 
which  yet  find  countenance  and  applause  even  from  a  thousand  presses 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  citizens,  upon  the  pretext  that  the  rendition  of 
fugitives  is  distasteful  and  revolting  to  the  North.  Yes,  Abolitionist,  it 
is  the  Constitution  which  you  attack,  not  the  act  of  1850.  It  is  the 
extradition  of  "  panting  fugitives,"  under  any  circumstances,  or  by  virtue 
of  any  law,  at  which  you  rebel.  Be  manly,  then,  and  outspoken,  and 
honest.  Act  the  part  of  cowards  and  slave-stealers  no  longer.  Assail 
the  Constitution  itself,  and  do  it  openly— it  is  the  Constitution  which 
demands  the  restoration — and  cover  not  up  your  assaults  any  longer, 
under  the  false  and  beggarly  pretence  that  it  is  the  act  of  Congress 
which  you  condemn  and  abhor. 

I  know,  sir,  that  it  is  easy,  very  easy,  to  denounce  all  this  as  a  defence 
of  slaverv  itself  Be  it  so :  be  it  so.  But  I  have  not  discussed  the 
institution  in  any  respect — moral,  religious,  .or  political.  Hear  me ;  I 
express  no  opinion  in  regard  to  it ;  and,  as  a  citizen  of  the  North,  I  have 
ever  refused,  and  will  steadily  refuse,  to  discuss  the  system  in  any  of 
these  particulars.  It  is  precisely  this  continued  and  persistent  discussion 
and  denunciation  in  the  North,  which  has  brought  upon  us  this  present 
most  perilous  crisis ;  since  to  teach  men  to  hate,  is  to  prepare  them  to 
destroy,  at  every  hazard,  the  object  of  their  hatred.  Sir,  1  am  resolved 
only  to  look  upon  slavery  outside  of  Ohio,  just  as  the  founders  of  the 
Constitution  and  Union  regarded  it  It  is  no  concern  of  mine — none, 
none — nor  of  yours.  Abolitionist.  Neither  of  us  will  attain  heaven  by 
denunciations  of  slavery ;  nor  shall  we,  I  trow,  be  cast  into  hell  for  the 
sin  of  others  who  mav  hold  slaves.  I  have  not  so  learned  the  moral 
government  of  the  universe ;  nor  do  I  presumptuously  and  impiously 
aspire  to  the  attributes  of  Godhead,  and  seek  to  bear  upon  my  poor 
bod}"  the  iniquities  of  the  world. 

I  know  well,  indeed,  Mr.  President,  that  in  the  e^■il  day  which  has 
befallen  us,  all  this,  and  he  who  utters  it,  shall  be  denounced  as  "  pro- 
slavery  ;"  and  already,  from  ribald  throats,  there  comes  up  the  slaveling, 

stood,  by  this  nation  and  the  world,  that,  as  Abolitionists,  considering  that  the 
strength  of  our  cause  lies  in  its  righteousness,  and  our  hopes  for  it  in  our  conform- 
ity to  the  laws  of  God,  and  our  support  for  the  rights  of  man,  we  owe  to  the  sov- 
ereign Ruler  of  the  Universe,  as  a  proof  of  our  allegiance  to  him,  in  all  our  civil 
relations  and  offices,  whether  as  friends,  citizens,  or  as  public  functionaries,  sworn 
to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  regard  aud  treat  the  third 
clause  of  that  instrument,  whenever  applied  in  the  case  of  ^  fugitive  slave,  AS 
UTTERLY  NULL  AND  voTO,  and.  Consequently,  as  forming  no  part  of  the  Constitution 
■^of  the  United  States,  whenever  we  ^re  called  upox  as  sworx  to  support  rr." 


132  tallandigham's  speeches. 

drivelling,  idiot  cpKhet  of  "  doughface."  Again ;  be  it  so.  Tliese, 
Abolitionist,  are  your  only  weapons  of  warfare  ;  and  I  hurl  them  back  defi- 
antly into  your  teeth.  I  speak  thus  boldly,  because  I  speak  in  and  to  and 
for  the  North.  It  is  time  that  the  truth  should  be  known  and  heard, 
in  this  the  age  of  trimming  and  subterfuge.  I  speak  this  day,  not  as  a 
Northern  man,  nor  a  Southern  man ;  but,  God  be  thanked,  still  as  a 
United  States  man,  with  United  States  principles;  and  though  the 
worst  happen  which  can  happen — though  all  be  lost,  if  that  shall  be  our 
fate,  and  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  political  death,  I 
will  live  by  them,  and  die  by  them.  If  to  love  my  country ;  to  cherish 
the  Union;  to  revere  the  Constitution;  if  to  abhor  the  madness  and 
hate  the  treason  which  would  lift  up  a  sacrilegious  hand  against  either ; 
if  to  read  that  in  the  past,  to  behold  it  in  the  present,  to  foresee  it  in 
the  future  of  this  land,  which  is  of  more  value  to  us  and  the  world  for 
ages  to  come  than  all  the  multij)licd  millions  who  have  inhabited  Africa 
from  the  creation  to  this  day — if  this  it  is  to  be  pro-slavery,  then,  in  every 
nerve,  fibre,  vein,  bone,  tendon,  joint,  and  ligament,  from  the  topmost 
hair  of  the  head  to  the  last  extremity  of  the  foot,  I  am  all  over  and  alto- 
gether a  PRO-SLAVERY  MAX. 

To  that  part  now,  Mr.  President,  <>f  the  Germans  who  have  been 
betrayed  upon  this  question,  1  address  a  word  of  caution.  Little  more 
than  a  year  ago,  availing  themselves  of  the  Nebraska  question  as  the 
pretext,  mischievous  and  designing  demagogues,  just  at  the  moment 
tliey  prepared  to  deny  you  the  full  enjoyment  of  your  own  political 
rights  here  in  Ohio,  persuaded  some  of  you  to  trail  in  the  dust  at  the 
heels  of  the  Abolition  rout.  Tliey  told  you,  and  you  believed  it,  some 
of  you,  that,  failing  to  establish  civil  liberty  against  the  crowned  oppres- 
sors of  your  fatherland,  and  seeking  for  it  as  exiles  in  America,  you  had 
the  right,  nevertheless,  to  intermeddle  wdth  pereonal  liberty  among  the 
inhabitants  of  other  States  and  Territories,  to  form  political  associations 
exclusively  German,  to  adopt  platforms  of  your  own  as  such,  to  instruct 
us  in  the  science  of  government,  the  nature  of  free  institutions,  and  the 
value  of  freedom,  to  require  of  us  to  give  away  our  public  lands  to  all 
alike,  naturalized  or  alien,  white  or  black,  to  denounce  the  people  of  the 
South,  because  of  the  "  curse  of  slavery,"  to  repeal  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  to  abolish  slaveholding  throughout  the  States,  in  confwmity  with, 
as  you  alleged,  and  perhaps  by  virtue  of  power  derived  from,  the  Decla- 
ration of  Lidependence,  and  finally  to  propose  to  convert  your  good  old 
German  May  festival  into  an  Abolition  mass  meeting,  in  our  very  midst. 
These  things,  they  persuaded  some  of  you  to  believe  and  to  do.  But  at 
this  very  moment,  and  by  the  self-same  demagogues,  was  the  knife  put 
to  your  own  throats,  and  you  were  quietly  guillotined,  and  your  heads 
thrust  into  the  basket,  upon  just  the  principles  they  had  persuaded  you 


HISTORY    OF   THE   ABOLITIOIS-    M0VEMET7T.  133 

that  you  had  the  right  to  intermeddle  with  the  domestic,  moral,  and 
religious  concerns  of  other  States  and  Temtories.  Opening  now  your 
eyes  to  the  fraud  thus  practised  upon  you,  learning  the  true  character 
of  the  men  who  beo-uiled  vou,  and  rememberincj  that  the  first  State 
which  breasted  and  turned  back  the  toirent  which  was  sweepino-  you, 
and  your  hopes,  and  your  rights  before  it,  was  the  slaveholding  State 
of  Virginia,  through  the  Democratic  party  of  Virginia,  followed  up  by 
every  Southern  State,  Kentucky  alone  excepted,  retrace  your  steps  now 
into  the  ranks  of  that  party,  stand  fast  to  your  true  interests  and  true 
position,  concern  yourselves  no  longer  with  the  business  of  others,  but 
quietly  enjoy,  and  calmly  defend  your  own  rights,  remembering  always 
those  who  have  ever  sustained  you  in  whatsoever  truth  and  liberty  and 
justice  demand  for  you. 

Addressing  myself  now,  finally,  Mr.  President,  to  the  Democratic 
party  of  Ohio,  I  say  :  You  are  a  political  party ;  hence,  all  your  princi- 
ples must  as  well  take  shape  and  color,  as  reflect  them,  from  the  funda- 
mental institutions  of  the  country ;  and  those  principles  which  belong 
to  Democracy,  universal  and  theoretical,  are  to  be  modified  and  adjudged 
by  the  Constitution.  It  has  always  been  your  boast,  that  you  are  pe- 
culiarly the  party  of  the  Constitution  and  of  that  Union  which  result!= 
froni,  and  exists  only,  by  the  Constitution.  And  just  in  proportion  as 
you  value  these,  will  you  mould  and  modify  your  doctrine,  and  your 
practice,  to  sustain  and  preserve  them  in  every  essential  element.  Sure 
I  am,  at  least,  that  you  will  not,  for  the  sake  of  an  abstract  principle, 
purely,  or  mainly  moral,  or  religious,  and  to  us  not  political,  and  urged 
now  in  the  very  spirit  of  treason  and  madness,  and  far  removed  from 
every  personal  concern  of  yours,  sacrifice  or  even  imperii  these  priceless 
legacies  of  a  generation  at  least  as  good  and  as  wise  as  we.  Tnist  not 
to  past  success.  Times  have  changed.  For  four  years  you  filched 
inglorious  triumphs  by  fomenting  dissensions  among  your  enemies,  and 
by  exhausting  all  the  little  arts  of  partisan  diplomacy,  to  keep  the  Whig 
and  Abolition  parties  asunder.  You  wasted  your  time  striving  to  pluck 
out  of  the  crucible  of  politics  the  fluxes  which  they  threw  in,  seeking 
thus  vainly  to  prevent  or  impede  a  fusion  which  was  inevitable,  and 
which,  when  it  came,  overwhelmed  you  as  with  a  flood  of  lava,  in  dis- 
astrous, if  not  ignominious  defeat.  Was  this  conduct  befitting  a  great 
and  enduring  party — conduct  worthy  the  prestige  of  your  name  ?  Learn 
wisdom  from  Virginia,  your  mother  State  ;  she  is  ever  invincible,  because 
she  is  always  candid  and  manly  and  true  to  principle.  Look  no  longer 
now  to  availability  ;  above  all,  be  not  deceived  by  the  false  and  senseless 
outcry  against  that  most  just,  most  Constitutional,  and  most  necessary 
measure — the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act*     The  true    and   only    question 

*  See  post,  page  282. 


I;i4  VALLA^'DlGIIA.^.'s    SPEECHES. 

now  before  you  is :  Whether  you  will  have  a  Union,  ^vith  all  its 
numberless  blessings  in  the  past,  present,  and  future,  or  Disunion  and 
civil  war,  with  all  the  multiplied  crimes,  miseries,  and  atrocities  which 
human  imagination  never  conceived,  and  human  pen  never  can  poitray  ? 
I  speak  it  boldly — I  avow  it  publicly — it  is  time  to  speak  thus,  for 
political  cowardice  is  the  bane  of  this,  as  of  all  other  republics.  To  be 
true  to  your  great  mission,  and  to  succeed  in  it,  you  must  take  open, 
manly,  one-sided  ground  upon  the  Abolition  question.  In  no  other  way 
can  you  now  conquer.  Let  us  have,  then,  no  hollow  compromise,  no 
idle  and  mistimed  homilies  upon  the  sin  and  evil  of  slavery  in  a  crisis 
like  this ;  no  double-tongued,  Janus-faced,  Delphic  responses  at  your 
State  conventions.  No ;  fling  your  banner  to  the  breeze,  and  boldly 
meet  the  issue.     Patriotism  above  mock  philanthropy  ;  the  Consti-  ■ 

TUTION    BEFORE   ANY    MISCALLED    HIGHER    LAW  OF    MORALS  OR    RELIGION  ; 

AND  THE  Union  of  more  value  than  many  negroes. 

If  thus,  sir,  we  are  true  to  the  country,  true  to  the  Union  and  the 
Constitution,  true  to  our  principles,  true  to  our  cause  and  to  the  grand 
mission  which  lies  before  us,  we  shall  turn  back  yet  the  fiery  toiTcnt 
which  is  bearing  us  headlong  down  to  the  abyss  of  disunion  and  infamy, 
deeper  than  plummet  ever  sounded ;  but  if  in  this,  the  day  of  our  trial, 
we  ai'e  found  false  to  all  these,  false  to  our  ancestors,  false  to  ourselves, 
false  to  those  who  shall  come  after  us,  traitoi"s  to  our  country  and  to  the 
hopes  of  free  government  throughout  the  globe,  Bancroft  will  yet  write 
the  last  sad  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  American  Repubhc. 


ABSTRACT  OF  ARGUMENT  IN  THE  OHIO  "FUGITIVE  SLAVE 

RESCUE  CASE," 

In  the  Circuit  Court  of  the    United  States  for  Southern  Ohio,  at   Cin- 
cinnati, June  25,  1857  ;  on  Habeas  Corpus.* 

After  a  few  introductory  remarks,  and  a  reply,  at  some  length,  to 
some  technical  objections  made  by  the  Attorney-General  in  the  morn- 
ing, to  the  writ  and  proceedings  in  the  case,  and  also  a  brief  discussion 

*  This  case  was  argued  for  the  United  States,  by  Hong.  George  E.  Push,  and 
C.  L.  Vallandigham,  and  Judge  Stanley  Matthews;  and  for  the  State  by  At- 
torney-General C.  P.  Wolcott,  sent  down  for  that  purpose  by  Salmon  P.  Chase, 
then  Governor  of  Ohio. 


ON   THE    OHIO    "fugitive    SLAVE   EESCTJE   CASE.       135 

of  several  minor  points  claimed  for  the  United  States,  Mr.  Vallandig- 
HAM,  proceeded  as  follows  : 

The  question  of  excess  and  abuse  of  authority,  by  the  marshals,  is 
the  only  one  of  real  importance  lying  in  advance  of  the  great  ques- 
tion of  power  and  jurisdiction,  in  this  controversy  between  the  State 
and  the  United  States.  If  the  marshals  used  no  more  force  or 
violence  than  was  necessary,  to  prevent  the  execution  by  the  sherift' 
of  the  habeas  corpus,  and  a^  rescue  of  their  prisoners,  they  are 
clearly  entitled  to  protection  in  this  proceeding  under  the  seventh 
section  of  the  act  of  March  2,  1833  ;  otherwise  not.  Up  to  that  piont, 
they  were  acting  plainly  "in  pursuance  of  a  law  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  process  of  a  judge  thereof."  I  will  not  discuss 
the  testimony  in  the  case  ;  it  is  before  the  court ;  but  will  affirm  that 
the  weight  of  the  evidence  distinctly  establishes  that  no  more  was  done 
by  the  deputies  than  was  necessary,  or  certainly  at  the  moment  and 
under  the  circumstances,  appeared  necessary,  to  prevent  the  rescue  of 
the  prisoners,  and  to  defend  themselves  against  violence,  if  not  loss  of 
life.  It  is  proper,  howevei",  to  advert  to  the  point  made,  and,  with  some 
earnestness,  pressed  by  the  Attorney-General,  that  the  return  by  the 
sheriff  to  the  writ  is  conclusive  as  to  the  facts  in  the  case,  and  that  the 
courts  cannot  look  to  any  testimony  outside  of  it.  True,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  statute  of  Congress  regulating  the  writ  and  proceedings  on 
habeas  corpus,  or  any  rule  of  court  adopting  the  statutes  of  the  State, 
the  court  here  is  bound  by  the  principles  of  the  common  law  as  they 
are  recognized  in  such  cases.  But  it  is  not  merely  these  principles  as 
received  and  interpreted  in  Westminster  Hall,  but  as  modified  and  ac- 
cepted in  the  United  States.  The  books  are  full  of  cases  where  the 
courts  of  the  States  and  of  the  Union,  exercising  a  common  law  jurisdic- 
tion, have  gone  behind  the  return  where  the  party  was  held  in  custody 
under  judicial  process,  and  inquired,  by  affidavit  or  otherwise,  into  the 
true  facts'  of  the  capture  and  detention  of  the  party  in  custody.  Judge 
McLean  allowed  it  in  Nelson  vs.  Cutter,  3  McLean,  326  (1845),  so 
also  in  ex  parte  Robinson  (the  Rosetta  case)  6  McLean  R.,  355. 
Judges  Grier  and  Kane  permitted  it  in  ex  parte  Jenkins,  2  Wall.  Jr. 
R.,  525;  and  so  also  Judge  Leavitt,  in  ex  parte  Robinson,  4  Law  Reg., 
61*7  (the  Gaines  case).  These  are  but  a  few  of  the  numerous  prece- 
dents which,  if  need  were,  I  might  produce.  Upon  principle  also,  and 
the  reason  and  necessity  of  the  case,  it  is  assuredly  proper ;  and  in  ad- 
dition to  many  other  examples,  I  will  put  the  case  of  a  member  of  the 
Federal  Senate  or  House,  who,  except  for  treason,  felony  or  breach  of 
the  peace,  is  by  the  constitution  protected  from  arrest  during  the  sit- 
ting of  Congress  and  in  going  and  returning.  Suppose  that  neverfiie- 
less,  while  on  his  way   to  the  capital  of  t"he  Union,  he  is  arrested  f  >r 


136  yallandigiiam's  speeches. 

debt,  how,  without  proof  outside  of  the  return,  is  he  to  secure  his  dis- 
charge ?  If  the  law  be,  indeed,  as  claimed  by  the  Attorney -General,  it 
would  subject  the  whole  proceeding  to  the  control  of  the  officer,  with 
QO  redress  for  the  prisoner  except  the  poor  privilege  of  an  action  for 
false  return. 

Having  thus  disposed  of  these  preliminary  points  made  in  the  case,  I 
now  proceed  to  the  great  question  to  be  discussed,  first  assuming 
that  the  Fugitive-slave  Act  of  1850  is  constitutional,  and  the  process  in 
the  hands  of  the  marshals  regular,  and  issued  by  proper  authority. 
These  facts  I  believe  are  not  controverted. 

I.  If  this  were  an  ordinarij  habeas  corpus,  which  issued  from  the 
Probate  Court  of  Champaign  County  to  the  Sheriff — if  it  were  the  true, 
constitutional,  oldfasMdned  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  would  the  Dejiuties 
have  been  bound  to  obey  it  ? 

I  will  not  put  the  question  in  the  usual  form — Had  the  State  Judge 
or  Court,  power  to  issue  it?  The  two  are,  no  doubt,  in  fact,  equiva- 
lent ;  but  I  prefer  the  form  in  which  I  state  it,  as  presenting  the  true 
issue  more  fairly.  If  it  nowhere  appears  to  the  State  Judge  that  the 
party  claiming  custody  of  the  prisoner,  detains  him  by  virtue  of  law 
or  process  of  the  United  States,  of  course  he  has  a  right,  and  is  bound 
to  grant  the  writ ;  it  is  so  said  by  Judge  McLean  in  Norris  vs.  Newton, 
5  McLean  R.,  99.  No  one  doubts  it.  But  whenever  the  sheriff"  hold- 
ing the  writ  ascertains — and  it  is  his  duty  to  ascertain  it — that  the 
prisoners  are  held  by  United  States  marshals,  under  process  of  the  Fed- 
eral Courts,  he  should  desist  at  once  from  all  attempt  to  execute  it,  if 
issued  under  the  act  of  1847,  and  return  the  facts.  Such  a  return 
would  be  good  and  valid.  No  writ  can  issue  to  the  sheriff,  except 
under  the  act  of  1856,  without  fraud,  perjury,  or  concealment  of  the 
facts,  because  the  copy  of  the  wan-ant  or  commitment  required  to  be 
furnished  to  the  judge  will  disclose  on  its  face  that  it  is  United  States 
process  under  which  the  petitioner  is  held  in  custody. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  right  of  the  State  Courts  to  issue  writs  of 
this  sort  is  well  settled  by  usage  on  part  of  the  State  Courts,  and  ac- 
quiescence on  part  of  the  United  States.  I  deny  jt.  As  to  authority, 
there  is  no  case,  I  believe,  till  the  present,  where  a  prisoner  has  been 
charged  with  a  crime  under  the  penal  laws  of  the  United  States,  and 
jurisdiction  assumed  by  a  State  Court  or  Judge  to  interfere,  except  the 
notorious  "  Booth  Case,"  in  Wisconsin,  which  no  respectable  la-wyer 
will  condescend  to  cite  as  authority,  and  the  case  of  The  Common- 
wealth vs.  Holloway,  5  Binney's  R.,  512.  This  last  was  a  charge 
of  misprision  of  treason  in  1813,  and  a  commitmetit  thereon  by  a  Jus- 
tin-of  the  Peace  of  Pennsylvania,  under  the  thirty-third  section  of  the 
Judiciary  Act  of  1789;  and  the  court  in  taking  jurisdiction  of  the  case, 


ON   THE    OHIO  "rUGITWE    SLAVE   EESCUE    CASE."    137 

which  they  did  with  much  hesitation,  put  it  expressly  upon  the  ground 
that   the    officer   committing,  was    an    officer  of  the  State.     So,    too, 
Clark's  case  (9  Wend.  K,  212),  arose  upon  a  requisition  addressed  to 
the  Governor  of  New  York.     But  the  usual  case  is  that  of  minors  enlisting 
in  the  army  or  navy  of  the  United  States.     These  cases  are  numerous, 
but  there  are  only  two  or  three  where  the  question  of  jurisdiction  has 
been  discussed  or  considered  at  all.     In  the  first  three   cases  reported 
[Hustecrs  case,  1  John.  Cases,  126;   Roberts,  2  Hall's  L.  Journal,  192, 
and  Fergusoii's,  9  J.  R.,  229,)  the  application  was  denied  or  the  pro- 
ceeding dismissed.     It  has  indeed  been  said  or  supposed  that  the  latter 
case  was  overruled  in  10  J.  R.,  328,  Stacy's  case.     This  is  a  mistake. 
The  Court  did  not  refer  to  9  Johnson  at  all ;  nor  was  the  principle  of 
the  case  in  any  respect  similar.     It  expressly   appeared  in  the  applica- 
tion and  upon  the  return,  that  Stacy  was  not  held  under  any  law  or 
process  of  the  United  States,  but  against  all  law.     There  never  was  a 
case  more  strongly  demanding  the  interference  of  a  Court.     In  the 
matter  of  Carlton,  7  Cowen,  471,  the  only  question  was,  whether  the 
State  process  could  run  into  West  Point.     So  in  the  United  States  vs. 
WyrKjals,  5  Hill,  16,  the  sole  matter  raised  and  decided  was  a  point  in 
the  law  of  evidence.     Many  cases  have  occurred  in  Massachusetts  ;  but 
in  one  only  has  the  question  of  jurisdiction  been  raised  in  argument, 
and  in  none  has  it  been  considered  by  the  court.  (11  Mass.  R.,  63,  67, 
83 ;  24   Pick.   R.,   227.)     Several  cases  also  have  arisen  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, but  in  one  only  has  the  question  been  suggested  and  briefly  con- 
sidered.    [Commonwealth  vs.  Fox,  7  Pa.  St.  R.,  336.)     And  here  the 
Court  adopt  the  distinction  made  by  the  Virginia  Court  of  Appeals ; 
that  they  have  jurisdiction  where  the  custody  is  not  claimed  under  j9ro- 
cess  of  the  Courts  of  the  United  States ;   impliedly,  therefore,  denying 
jurisdiction  where  it  is  under  process  of  a  Federal  Judge  or  Court.     It 
is  difficult  indeed  to   distinguish  between   these  two   classes   of  cases. 
The  same  legislative  authority  which  requires  the  marshal  or  officer  of 
a  Court  to  keep  safely  his  prisoner  on   civil  or  criminal  process,  com- 
mands the  officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy  to  hold  under  their  author- 
ity  and    control,  the    soldiers,   seamen    and   marines     of  the    United 
States.     If  the  Courts  of  the   State  have  no  power  to  discharge  from 
imprisonment  under  process  of  the  United  States  Courts,  and  the  mar- 
shal, as  repeatedly  has  been  adjudged,  may   disobey  the   order  of  dis- 
charge, equally  may  a  military  or  naval  officer  disobey  and  be  protected. 
Once,  also,  in  a  case  of  extradition  under  a  United  States  treaty,  a 
Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York,  assumed  jurisdiction  on  habeas 
corpus.     (In  the  Matter  of  Metzger,  1  Barb.,  S.  C.  Rep.,  248.)     But,  this 
case  is  very  much  in  the  same  spirit  and  style  as  the  Booth  case  in  Wis- 
consin.    A  United  States  Judge  had,  under  the  treaty  with  France, 


138  vallandigham's  speeches. 

examined  into  the  charge  and  comrdittcd  the  prisoner.  The  President 
issued  his  mandate  under  the  treaty ;  a  habeas  corpus  was  a])pHed  for  in 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  and  refused.  Metzger  then 
took  out  a  writ  oi  habeas  corpus,  returnable  before  Judge  Edmonds,  who 
reversed  Judge  Betts,  overruled  the  Supreme  Court,  rebuked  the  Presi- 
dent and  discharged  the  prisoner.  This  is  the  third  time  Judge  Ed- 
monds, before  he  became  lost  in  the  occult  mysteries  of  Sjnritnalism, 
has  overruled  the  Supreme  Court ;  but  he  stands  alone,  except  in  Wiscon- 
sin, and  before  his  Uonor,  Burgoyne,  of  the  Probate  Court  of  this  city. 

State  Courts,  in  other  cases,  have  uniformly  denied  even  the  appli- 
cation, when  it  appeared  that  the  custody  was  under  color  of  process 
from  the  United  States  Courts.  It  was  so  in  the  matter  of  Sims,  before 
all  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  ;  7  Cush.  R.,  285  : 
so,  also,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  ex  parte  Williamson,  before  Lewis,  Cli.  J., 
3  Law  Reg.,  741  ;  and,  again,  ia  ex  parte  Williamson,  26  Pa.  State  Rep., 
1,  by  all  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  one  only  (Knox)  dissenting. 
So  in  Georgia,  in  The  State  vs.  Flime,  the  direct  question  was  decided 
against  the  jurisdiction.  (T.  U.  P.  CharUon's  Rep.,  142.)  The  N.  Y. 
Revised  Statutes  also  forbid  it. — (Vol.  2,  p.  563,  sec.  22.)  No  case  is 
reported  in  Ohio  ;  but  Judge  Swan,  now  of  the  Supreme  Bench,  questioned 
the  right  soon  after  the  act  of  1847.  (2  Swan's  PI.  and  Prac,  1245.) 
So,  then,  even  upon  the  authority  of  the  State  Courts,  the  question  re- 
mains still  open  and  doubtful,  at  least,  in  any  case ;  though  the  weight 
of  authority  and  the  respectability  of  Courts  is  decidedly  against  the 
jurisdiction  where  it  appears  that  the  party  was  held  under  claim  or 
color  of  process  or  authority  from  the  United  States. 

How,  then,  stands  the  case  in  the  Federal  Courts  ?  There  is  no  decis- 
ion by  the  Supreme  Court  directly  upon  the  question :  but  the  case  of 
Duncan  vs.  Darst,  1  How.  R.,  301,  in  effect  decides  it.  It  was  there 
'  held  that  a  person  in  custody  under  a  capias  ad  satisfaciendum,  issued 
under  the  authority  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States,  could  not 
be  legally  discharged  from  m[iprisonment  by  a  State  officer,  acting  under 
a  State  insolvent  law. 

Mr.  Justice  Nelson  seems,  indeed,  in  1  Blatchford,  642,  to  concede  the 
right  to  the  State  Judges  or  Courts ;  but  this  was  not  in  a  case  arisen, 
and  after  argument  and  upon  consideration,  but  obiter  in  a  charge  to  the 
frrand  jur}'.  Pope,  J.,  in  ex  parte  Joe  Smith  (the  Mormon  Prophet), 
3  McLean,  121  /1 843),  doubts  the  power,  even  in  the  case  of  a  requisi- 
tion upon  the  Executive  of  a  State.  McLean,  J.,  considers  the  question 
in  JVorris  vs.  Xewton,  5  McLean,  92,  98  ;  but  as  he  qualifies  and  explains 
it,  the  point  is  not  decided  at  all.  He  admits  the  right  where  the  State 
Judcre  or  Court,  does  not  know  that  the  confinement  is  under  color  of 
process  or  authority  of  the  United  States.     This  is  not  denied.     But  he 


ON   THE    OHIO    "FUGITIVE   SLAVE   RESCUE    CASE.      139 

says :  "These  facts  being  stated,  as  the  cause  of  detention,  would  have 
terminated  the  jurisdiction  of  the  judge  under  the  writ." 

Surely,  then,  if  these  facts  appear  in  the  first  instance,  the  jurisdiction 
never  attaches  ;  otherwise  the  whole  proceeding  is  a  farce.  To  the  same 
point  may  again  be  cited  the  Sims  and  Williamson  cases,  in  Y  Gushing 
and  26  Pennsylvania  State  Reports.  So  the  Ohio  statute  of  1811  ex- 
pressly excepts  from  the  benefit  of  the  writ  persons  convicted,  &c.  In 
such  case  the  Court  or  Judge  has  no  jurisdiction  to  issue  the  writ.  But 
suppose  it  is  not  disclosed  to  the  Judge  that  the  party  applying  is  a 
convict,  but  only  generally  that  he  is  "  illegally  imprisoned  "  (and  such 
is  the  showing  in  this  case),  he  is  bound  to  issue ;  but  the  Warden  of 
the  Penitentiary  is  not  bound  to  obey.  Again,  Judson,  J.,  of  the  South 
ern  District  of  New  York,  in  the  matter  of  Veretemaitre,  13  Law  Rep,, 
608  (1850),  expressly  denies  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  Courts,  even 
in  cases  of  enlistment  (p.  616-618).  The  decisions  of  Judges  McLean, 
and  Leavitt,  in  the  Rosetta  and  Gaines  cases  (6  McLean,  355 ;  4  Law, 
Reg.,  617)  surely,  are  conclusive  of  this  question,  in  its  real  form.  In 
both  these  cases  the  marshal  was  justified  in  disobeying  the  order  of  a 
State  Court  or  Judge  made  in  the  proceeding  on  habeas  corpus,  upon 
the  ground  of  his  paramount  duty  to  obey  the  laws  and  process  of  the 
United  States.  Now,  if  a  State  Judge  or  Court  cannot  enforce  obedience 
to  any  order  made  in  such  a  proceeding,  why  allow  that  there  is  any 
jurisdiction  in  the  case  at  all  ?  What  is  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  worth, 
if,  after  the  prisoner  is  brought  before  him,  and  he  is  satisfied  that  the 
party  is  illegally  confined,  he  has  yet  no  right  to  deliver  him.  Is  it 
not  a  mockery  ?  Is  not  the  majesty  of  the  State  insulted  and  trifled  with 
far  more  by  allowing  the  party  to  be  brought  into  Court  and  then  to 
defy  its  power  ?  Far  better  that  the  jurisdiction  be  denied  altogether. 
If,  then,  the  real  question  be,  is  the  marshal  bound  to  obey  the  writ,  it 
is  surely  settled  and  settled  in  the  negative — a  denial,  therefore,  of  the 
right  to  issue,  since  that  right  and  the  right  to  enforce  obedience  ought 
always  to  be  coextensive. 

The  doctrine  here  contended  for  is  the  only  doctrine  consistent  with 
our  complex  system  of  government.  I  agree  heartily  and  throughout, 
with  the  States-Rights  doctrines,  which  the  Attorney-General  with  so 
much  ability  has  advocated.  I  yield  to  no  man  in  devotion  to  those 
doctrines.  Perhaps  I  even  carry  them  farther  than  many  others.  But 
this  is  not  a  question  of  State  rights.  We  live  under  two  governments, 
which  are  only  parts  of  one  great  whole.  Neither  government  possesses 
all  the  attributes  of  sovereignty.  Every  citizen  of  Ohio — and  especially 
because  of  a  peculiarity  of  our  State  Constitution — is  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  As  citizens  of  Ohio  we  do  not  exercise  the  right  to 
declare  war  and  make  peace,  to  maintain  an  army  and  navy,  or  other 


140  VALLA2s'DIGHAiI  S    SPEECHES. 

similar  acts  of  sovereignty.  In  the  quality  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States  we  do  exercise  these  powers,  though  as  such  citizens  we  are 
wantino-  in  othei-s  which  beloucj  to  us  in  our  character  as  citizens  of 
the  State.  Sovereignty  is,  therefore,  divided  among  the  governments 
of  the  States  and  the  Union.  The  boundaries  are  defined  and  marked 
out  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Each  is  supreme  within 
its  own  limits.  Neither  can  be  interfered  with  by  the  other  while  each 
keeps  within  its  own  proper  orbit.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  all  laws  in  pursuance  of  it,  are,  indeed,  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land,  and  where  constitutional,  bind  the  Judges  of  the  State  Courts, 
in  case  of  conflict.  All  State  officers  are  sworn  to  support  it.  Thus 
the  Constitution  of  the  Union  is  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  Ohio ; 
the  laws  in  pursuance  of  it  are  a  pai-t  of  the  legislation  of  the  State,  and 
the  decisions  of  its  courts  within  their  sphere,  a  part  of  the  jurisprudence 
of  the  State ;  and  all  are  to  be  construed  together.  So  long  as  each 
government  keeps  within  its  constitutional  and  legitimate  sphere,  such 
is  the  admirable  beauty  and  the  perfection  of  the  system,  that  there 
never  can  be  a  collision.  ^Tierever,  then,  the  courts  or  authorities  of 
the  United  States  have  constitutional  power  to  act,  their  process  and 
action  ought  to  be  whoEy  free  from  all  control,  temporary  or  permanent, 
in  any  way  or  to  any  extent,  by  State  action  or  State  process.  It  is  of 
no  moment  what  the  purpose  is,  or  how  long  the  intermeddling,  whether 
for  an  hour,  a  day,  or  six  months.  And,  in  this  point  of  view,  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  is  no  more  sacred,  and  has  no  more  power  or  authority 
to  control,  or  delay,  or  affect  in  any  way,  or  for  any  purpose,  or  any 
time,  the  process  of  the  United  States,  than  a  capias,  an  execution,  or 
an  attachment. 

I  now  proceed  to  apply  these  principles  to  the  argument  of  the 
Attorney-General  this  morning.  Assuming  the  very  point  in  controversy, 
Mr.  Attorney  has  selected  his  ground  and  built  up  a  most  able  and  inge- 
■  nious,  and,  I  will  say,  unanswerable  argument,  I  give  him  the  whole 
benefit  of  it  in  its  utmost  strength.  He  finds  the  collision  which  con- 
fessedly exists  in  this  case  between  the  State  and  the  United  States,  in 
an  attempt  by  this  proceeding  on  habeas  corpus,  under  the  act  of  Con- 
oress,  in  1833,  to  obstruct  and  render  useless  and  powerless  the  penal 
laws  and  jurisprudence  of  the  State,  and  to  protect  hereby  the  marshals 
of  the  United  States  fi-om  punishment  for  an  infraction  of  those  laws — 
the  laws  af^ainst  assault  and  battery  and  the  attempt  to  murder.  He 
has  argued,  and  most  conclusively — and  it  is  his  whole  argument — that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  cannot  interfere  with  the  penal 
laws  or  process  of  a  State,  and  rescue  offenders  from  the  penalty  for 
offences  against  those  laws.  But  does  not  Mr.  Attorney  see,  I  ask,  that 
the  very  question  to  be  argued  is,  whether  the  acts  done  by  the  marshals 


ox   THE    OHIO  "fugitive    SLATE    RESCUE    CASE.      141 

were,  under  the  circumstances,  an  offence  against  the  laws  of  the  State ! 
If  they  were,  then  this  Court  has  no  power,  by  habeas  corpus  or  other- 
wise, to  shield  them  from  punishment.  But  let  that  question  be  tested. 
Prima  facie  every  homicide  is  murder.  (Wright's  Rep.,  75.)  The 
statute  against  murder  is  general ;  it  contains  no  excepted  cases.  How, 
then,  does  the  sheriff,  who  hangs  a  man  by  the  neck  till  dead,  escape  ? 
Because  the  same  statute  book  commands  that  he  shall  do  it,  and  the 
different  statutes  and  sections  being  construed  together,  it  appears  to  be 
lawful.  Again,  the  statute  against  homicide  is  general.  How,  therefore, 
is  the  Warden  of  the  Penitentiary  justified,  who  takes  the  life  of  a  pris- 
oner while  attempting  to  escape  ?  Because  the  law  sanctions  it.  Or 
how  comes  the  State  Officer  to  stand  acquit,  who  in  executhig  process, 
is  obliged  from  necessity  to  kill  the  party  resisting  ?  *  Because  the  law 
allows  it.  It  is,  therefore,  not  ever}"  beating  that  is  an  assault  and  bat- 
tery, nor  every  killing  that  is  murder,  nor  every  shooting  with  intent  to 
kill,  that  is  an  offence  against  the  penal  laws  of  the  State.  Now,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  Ohio ; 
the  law  of  1850,  under  which  the  process  was  issued  to  the  marshals  in 
this  case,  is  a  part  of  the  laws  of  Ohio,  and  must  be  taken  and  construed 
together  with  the  statutes  against  assault  and  shooting  with  intent  to 
kill.  The  Constitution  authorized  the  law,  and  the  law  the  process,  and 
the  process  justified  the  officer  in  using  aU  the  force  necessary  to  exe- 
cute it.  If  he  used  this  force  and  no  more,  then  what  he  did,  thouo-h 
there  were  beating  and  shooting,  was  no  offence  against  the  penal  laws 
of  Ohio.  And  all  that  the  court  proposes  to  do  here,  is  to  inquire  into 
the  truth  of  these  matters. 

But  Mr.  Attorney  has  argued  that  this  Court  or  Judge  has  no  con- 
stitutional power,  on  habeas  corpus,  to  inquire  into  these  facts,  and  that 
this  inquiry  can  be  made  only  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  under  the  twenty-fifth  section  of  the  Judiciary  Act  of  17§9,  after 
the  case  has  passed  through  the  highest  State  Court.  Xot  having 
denied  the  constitutionality  of  that  section,  I  have  only  to  remind  him 
that  the  Constitution  has  not  conferred  the  power  specially  upon  the 
Supreme  Court,  but  left  it  to  the  discretion  of  Congress ;  and  that  the 
same  legislative  authority  which,  in  1789,  prescribed  the  mode  by  writ 
of  error  to  the  Supreme  Court,  did,  in  1833,  confer  a  like  power  in  par- 
ticular cases,  by  habeas  corjms,  upon  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  and 
District  Courts  of  the  United  States.  It  is,  indeed,  befitting  the  dignity 
of  a  State  that,  after  a  case  has  gone  through  its  highest  tribunal,  the 
judgment  should  be  renewed  only  by  the  Supreme  Court,  and  upon 
error.  But  I  see  no  disparagement  of  State  pride  in  allowing  an  inquirv, 
on  habeas  corpus  by  a  Circuit  or  District  Court,  or  Judge  of  the  United 
States,  into  the  cause  of  imprisonment  of  a  United  States  marshal — an 


142  tallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

oflacer  of  those  courts — by  order  of  a  State  justice  of  the  peace.  The 
sovcreiofnty  of  the  State  is  not  very  deeply  wounded. 

But  the  Attorney-General  has  contended,  farther,  that  even  if  consti- 
tutional, the  act  of  1833  does  not  confer  jurisdiction  upon  the  court  or 
judge  in  a  case  like  this.  He  has  argued — and  in  arguing  has  drawn 
his  proof  from  the  peculiar  exigencies  which  called  for  the  act — that  it 
is  only  where  it  appears  upon  the  face  of  the  warrant  or  mittimus  that 
the  offence  charged  was  the  attempt  to  execute  a  law  or  writ  of  the 
United  States,  that  jurisdiction  attaches  upon  habeas  corpus.  But  does 
not  Mr.  Attorney  see  here  also,  that  so  narrow  a  construction  of  the 
statute  would  rendfer  it  nugatory  ?  The  language  of  the  law  is  broad 
enough  to  include  evrri/  case  where  the  act  done  or  omitted,  by  the 
reason  of  the  doing  or  omitting  to  do  which  the  party  is  imprisoned, 
was  so  done  or  omitted  in  the  discharge  of  any  duty  under  authority  of 
the  United  States ;  but  according  to  the  argument  urged  this  morning, 
only  let  the  real  offence  be  described  by  some  other  name,  or  concealed 
under  some  other  charge,  and  there  is  no  remedy  by  this  summary  pro- 
ceeding. To  so  construe  the  act,  is  to  hold  out  a  premium  for  fraud 
and  subterfuge.  I  will  venture  to  affirm  that  not  once  in  a  hundred 
instances,  will  the  warrant  or  commitment  disclose  the  true  nature  of 
the  charge,  or  the  circumstances  attending  it.  In  neither  the  Jenkins, 
the  Rosetta,  nor  the  Gaines  cases  "did  the  facts,  or  the  official  character 
of  the  parties,  appear  in  the  papers  returned  by  the  State  officer;  and 
yet  in  all  of  them,  the  judges,  under  the  act  of  1833,  and  after  objection 
urged,  received  testimony  disclosing  the  true  nature  and  circumstartces 
of  the  accusation  preferred;  and  upon  that  testimony  discharged  the 
prisoners.  So,  too,  in  the  Williamson  case  (4  Law  Reg.,  5),  the  court 
upon  habeas  corpus  received  even  oral  testimony  at  the  hearing,  to 
explain  or  contradict  the  return.  The  purpose  of  the  Act  of  1833  is  to 
enable  the  judges  and  courts  of  the  United  States  to  protect  themselves 
from  encroachment  by  other  authorities,  and  must  be  reasonably  con- 
strued with  reference  to  that  purpose.  And  upon  this  point  I  will  refer 
the  court  again  to  Williamson's  case  in  26  Penn.  State  Reports,  27, 
where  Lowrie,  J.,  speaking  of  this  Act,  said :  "  This  is  not  a  strange  way 
of  protecting  one  court  against  the  encroachments  of  another,  1  Rolle, 
315;  2  Chit.  Gen.  Pr.,  317 — 1  Madd.  Ch.  Pr.,  135.  And  it  is  certainly 
most  effectual,  for  it  would  protect  the  marshal  in  disobeying  an  order  by 
us  to  discharge  the  prisoner  ;  and  thus  it  very  plainly  forbids  us  to  dis- 
charge him." 

But  further:  The  Courts  of  the  United  States  have  very  generally 
respected  the  doctrines  which  I  have  maintained.  They  have,  in  many 
instances,  been  even  tender  and  delicate  of  the  authority  and  process  of 
the  State  Courts.     The  act  of  1789  expressly  excepts  writs  of  habeas 


ON   THE    OHIO    "fugitive   SLAVE    EESCUE    CASE."    1-io 

corpus  when  tlie  party  was  imprisoned  under  color  of  State  process  or 
authority.  In  ex  parte  Cabrera  (1  Wash.  C.  C,  R.,  232),  the  Court 
refused  to  interfere  in  favor  of  a  Foreign  Secretary  of  Legation,  who  was 

■  charged  with  forgery,  under  the  penal  laws  of  Pennsylvania.     So  in  ex 
2)arte  Dorr^  the  Supreme  Court  refused  a  habeas  corpus  to  bring  Dorr 
into  court  to  obtain  the  benefit  of  a  writ  of  error  under  the  twenty-fifth 
section  of  the   Act  of  1789.     {3  How.  R.,  624.)     So  in  Massachusetts, 

.where  a  man,  indicted  in  the  Circuit  Court  for  a  capital  oifence,  was  at 
the  time  imprisoned  for  debt  under  the  authority  of  the  State,  Judge 
Story  refused  to  interfere,  and  Judge  McLean  approves  the  refusal.  (5 
McLean,  100;  6  McLean,  363.)  So  where  deferrdants,  indicted  in  the 
Circuit  Court  of  Ohio,  for  counterfeiting,  were  at  the  same  time  held  in 
custody  for  an  oifence  under  the  laws  of  the  State,  Judge  McLean  held 
that  the  United  States  Court  had  "  no  power  to  take  them  from  such 
custody,  nor  a  State  Coui't  power  to  remove,  by  habeas  corpus,  a  defend- 
ant from  the  custody  of  a  court  of  the  United  States."  (5  McLean,  174.) 
So,  also,  Grier  J.  held  in  ex  parte  Jenkins^  2  Wall,  Jr.  R.,  525. 

The  seeming  exceptions  in  the  twelfth  and  twenty -fifth  sections  of  the 
Judiciary  Act  of  1789,  and  the  seventh  section  of  the  Act  of  March  2, 
1833,  are  intended  chiefly  to  protect  the  United  States  from  aggression 
upon  its  powers.  As  to  the  "  McLeod  Act"  of  1842,  I  think  that  rests 
upon  a  very  different  principle  from  the  other  acts. 

Upon  authority  and  reason  and  analogy,  then,  I  deny  the  right 
of  a  State  Court  or  Judge,  either  by  habeas  corpus,  or  in  any  way,  to 
interfere  with  the  process  or  judicial  proceedings  of  a  Court  or  Judge, 
or  other  officer  of  the  United  States,  when  in  the  discharge  of  his  legit- 
imate and  constitutional  duty.  They  have  no  jurisdiction,  in  any  form, 
in  such  case,  and  neither  is  the  officer  of  the  State  bound  to  execute, 
nor  of  the  United  States  to  obey,  any  such  process.  (10  Coke's  R.,  76, 
b;  5  Watts'  R.,  144;  1  How.  R.,  308.) 

Nor  is  there  any  danger  of  denial  or  delay  of  justice  in  such  cases. 
The  government  of  the  Union  is  no  alien  within  the  tei'ritory  of  Ohio. 
It  is  no  foreign  tyrant  or  usurper,  although  in  the  region  round  about 
the  head-waters  of  Mad  River,  it  seems  to  be  so  regarded.  Every  citizen 
or  inhabitant  of  the  State  is  also  an  inhabitant  or  citizen  of  the  United 
States  and  under  their  protection.  Their  courts,  too,  are  open  at  all 
times  ;  and  their  judges  and  juries  surely  quite  as  learned,  as  just  and  as 
upright  and  Impartial  as  the  juries  and  judges  of  the  State  courts.  If 
false  and  groundless  or  otherwise  illegal  detention  or  imprisonment  shall 
in  any  case  occur,  relief  by  habeas  corpus  or  upon  the  trial,  may  with 
certainty  be  obtained  there,  and  without  danger  of  collision  and  strife. 

11.  So  far  I  have  argued  the  case  as  if  the  writ  issued  by  the  State 
Judge  in  tliis,  case,  was  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.     But  it  was  not ;  and 


144  valla:s'dig II Ail's  spekciles. 

the  principles  I  have  already  laid  down,  apply  with  fifty-fold  force  to 
this  nondescript  process  issuing  to  the  sheriff,  commanding  him  to  take 
the  prisoners  from  the  custody  of  the  marslials.  It  was  not  a  habeas 
corpus ;  not  the  high  prerogative  writ  of  old  England ;  not  the  great 
writ  secured  by  the  Constitution,  having  none  of  its  sanctity,  and  enti- 
tled to  no  part  of  its  charities.  It  was  not  within  the  constitutional 
protection  against  suspension,  and  no  court  will  so  decide.  It  was  not 
directed  to  the  party  who  detained  the  prisoners  in  custody.  This  i^ 
of  the  very  essence  of  a  habeas  corpus,  it  is  descriptive  of  it,  and  enters 
into  the  definition  of  the  writ.  (1  Bouvier's  Law  Diet.  "Ilab.  Corp.;" 
3  Blackst.,  131;  Ohio  Act  of  1811,  Sec.  1,  transcribing  the  31st, 
Charles  II.,  C.  2,  1679.)  The  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  borrowed  from — 
at  least  all  authorities  agree  that  it  is  the  same  in  substance  as  the  "  In- 
terdict" of  the  Roman  law.  That,  too,  was  addressed  to  the  person 
having  the  custody  of  the  prisoner.  It  ran  thus :  "  Ait  praetor,  quern 
liberum  dolo  malo  retinens  exhibcas" — that  i/ou  produce  whom  you  de- 
tain. (Dig.  43,  29, 1.)  So  the  very  name  of  our  writ  imports  :  "  habeas,"' 
that  you  have.  But  when  a  writ  issues  to  the  Sheriff,  not  having  already 
the  custody  of  prisoners,  it  is  "  capias,"  that  you  take ;  and  this  is  the 
very  word  of  the  writ  in  this  case.  The  mode,  too,  of  serving  a  habeas 
corpus,  is  conclusive.  The  original  is  delivered  to  the  party  having  the 
custody  and  to  whom  it  is  directed,  and  it  is  he  who  makes  the  return. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  a  rule  to  show  cause.  Xot  so  with  other  writs. 
Not  so  wdth  the  writ  here.  What,  then,  is  it?  In  1847  an  act  was 
passed  by  the  Ohio  Legislature  purporting  to  be  an  amendment  to  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  of  1811,  requiring  that  the  writ  should,  in  the  case 
of  detention  by  private  persons,  be  addressed  to  the  sheriff,  and  require 
him  to  take  the  party  detained  into  his  custody,  and  summon  the  party 
detaining  him.  It  is  called  a  habeas  corpus,  but  it  is  not.  It  is  a  per- 
sonal replevin  ;  the  old  common  law  Avrit,  de  homine  replcf/iando,  revived 
and  a  little  altered.  But  it  requires  no  security,  as  at  common  law  ;  and 
although  it  makes  the  return  a  ^^^ra  in  the  case,  it  does  not  provide,  as 
at  common  law,  for  trial  by  jury,  but  leaves  the  matter  to  the  Judge. 
This  act  also  grew  out  of  fugitive-slave  cases  (2  AVest.  L.  Jour.,  279); 
but  it  had  in  ten  years  unhappili/  produced  no  collision.  It  was,  there- 
fore, out  of  date.  The  heat  of  the  times  demanded  something  of  a 
higher  mettle ;  and  the  act  of  1856  is  produced  from  the- same  loins, 
and  engendered  in  the  same  spirit,  but  an  offspring  of  far  lustier  and 
more  vigorous  birth.  This  act  requires  the  writ  in  certain  cases  to  be 
addressed  to  the  Sheriff  or  Coroner,  even  where  the  party  is  in  custody 
of  an' officer  by  virtue  of  judicial  process.  It. is  therefore  a  hybrid — a 
monstrosity  in  legislation  and  jurisprudence — a  sort  of  "  cross"  between 
habeas  corpus  and  de  homine  replegiando — a  veritable  mulatto  among 


Olf   THE    OHIO    "rUGITrV^E    SLAVE    RESCUE    CASE."    145 

writs.  It  is  not  a  habeas  corpus,  because  it  is  not  addressed  to  the  pnrty 
who  detains  the  prisoner ;  and  it  is  not  a  personal  replevin,  because  that 
issues  only  in  the  case  of  imprisonment  or  detention  by  a  private  per- 
son (3  Biackst.,  129),  and  specially  excepts  the  case  of  imprisonment 
und(^r  judicial  process.  (3  Reeves,  Hist,  of  Com.  Law,  83. — Bcplegiari 
facias,  ifc;c.,^not  habeas  coipus — nisi  cap)ti(s  sitp)er  speciale  prceccptwiii 
nostrum,  vel  capiialis  justitiarii  nostri,  &c. )  But  it  is  called  a  writ  of 
HABEAS  CORPUS,  bccausc  that  is  a  holy  name  and  embalmed  in  the  hearts 
of  the  people.  It  has  a  wicked  and  treasonable  purpose  to  subs<^rve,  and 
it  must  assume  a  sacred  name  and  garb.  Its  author  well  understood 
the  philosophy  of  Mirabeau,  and,  after  him,  Byron.     He  knew  that — 

"  "Words  are  things,  and  a  small  drop  of  ink, 
Falling  like  dew  upon  a  thought,  produces 
That  which  makes  thousands,  perhaps  millions  think." 

But  the  motives  and  the  results  expected  from  it  cannot  be  thus  con- 
cealed ;  and,  in  a  court  of  law,  it  must  be  stripped  of  its  disguises,  and 
set  forth  in  its  true  character — a  .statute  of  sedition  and  discord.  Very 
different  was  the  spirit  of  the  Act  of  1839.  That  act  provided  for  car- 
rying out  the  compacts  of  the  Constitution.  Its  preamble  sounds  strangely 
enough  in  this  age  of  Higher-law  fanaticism ; 

"  Whereas,  the  second  section  of  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  declares,  that  no  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in 
one  State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  conse- 
quence of  any  law  or  regul-ation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service 
or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such 
service  or  labor  may  be  due,"  and,  "  whereas,  the  laws  now  in  force  within 
the  State  of  Ohio  arei  wholly  inadequate  to  the  protection  pledged  by  this 
provision  of  the  Constitution  to  the  Southern  States  of  this  Union  ;  and, 
whereas,  it  is  the  duty  of  tliose  who  reap  the  largest  measure  of  benefits 
conferred  by  the  Constitution,  to  recognize,  to  their  full  extent,  the  obH- 
gations  which  that  instrument  imposes,  and,  whereas,  it  is  the  deliberate 
convection  of  this  General  Assembly,  that  the  Constitution  can  only  be 
sustained,  as  it  was  framed,  by  a  spirit  of  just  compromise;  therefore  be 
it  enacted,"  &c. 

Now,  I  most  respectfully  commend  this  preamble  to  the  people  of 
Clark,  Greene,  and  Champaign,  and  to  the  learned  counsel  upon  the  other 
side.  But  before  I  pass  from  the  subject  of  writs  I  will  call  the  atten- 
tion of  our  legislators,  who  extend  their  researches  back  into  the  musty  and 
murky  realms  of  the  dark  ages  for  precedents,  to  the  writ  de  odio  et  atia 
— a  writ  older  than  either  personal  replevin  or  habeas  corpus — a  writ  to 
v/hich,  possibly,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  may  yet  be  obliged 
10 


146  YALLANDIGIIAm's    SPEiXIIES. 

to  resort,  if  her  officers  are  in  like  manner  again  imprisoned  within  the 
"  infected''  counties. 

To  resume  :  The  law  of  1856,  so  far  as  it  was  intended  to  affect  or  so 
executed  as  to  affect  the  process  of  the  Courts  of  the  United  States,  I 
maintain  is  unconstitutional  and  void.  Its  effect  must  be  to  subordinate 
the  General  to  the  State  Government,  to  render  the  officers  of  the  former 
amenable  to  the  process  and  authority  of  the  latter — exactly  to  reverse 
the  position  of  the  two  governments,  where  the  furmer  was  by  the  Con- 
stitution supreme,  and  ultimately  to  subvert  it  altogether.  It  is  opposed 
to  the  whole  theory  and  practice  of  our  system  of  government,  and  with- 
out repeating,  I  beg  to  remind  the  Court  of  the  true  nature  of  our  system, 
as  before  described. 

But  especially  is  it  opposed  to  the  rule  admitted  and  recognized  in 
civil  suits,  without  a  case  to  the  contrary,  by  the  courts  of  both  the  States 
and  the  Union,  even  in  cases  of  concurrent  jurisdiction.  In  disputes 
also  between  courts  of  law  and  equity,  under  the  same  sovereign,  it  has 
always  been  conceded  that,  in  cases  of  concuiTcnt  jurisdiction,  the  court 
which  first  takes  the  matter  in  hand  is  to  control  it  exclusively  and  to 
the  end.  (9  Wheat.  R.,  532.)  In  cases  between  the  Federal  and  State 
Governments,  this  rule  is  well  settled  and  universal.  In  Har/an  vs.  Lucas, 
10  Pet.  R.,  400,  the  court  said  :  "  A  most  injurious  conflict  of  jurisdiction 
would  be  likely  often  to  arise  between  the  Federal  and  State  courts,  if 
the  final  process  of  the  one  could  be  levied  on  property  which  had  been 
taken  by  the  other."  And  to  the  same  point  I  cite,  9  Peters'  R.,  330 ; 
12  Peters'  R.,  102,  13  Peters'  R.,  136—151  ;  1  How.  R.,  308;  4  How. 
R.,  4 ;  8  How.  R.,  107  ;  10  How.  R.,  56,  14  How.  R.,  52,  also  368 ;  and 
Pulliara  vs.  Osborne,  17  How.  R.,  \^\  (1854),  where  the  cases  are  col- 
lected and  reviewed.  Also  1  Gall.  R.,  168;  3  Ohio  State  Rep.,  119; 
17  J.  R.,  4,  and  1  Kent's  Com.,  401.  I  will  add  also  the  case  cited  by 
the  Attorney-General  from  11  Peters'  R.,  102,  as  directly  in  poiut. 

So  too  in  criminal  cases,  the  same  rule  obtains,  and  by  the  Federal 
Courts  at  least  has  been  rigidly  adhered  to.  5  McLean,  100,  174;  2 
Wall.  Jr.,  525. 

But  the  case  is  much  stronger  where  the  power  is  exclusive.  Such 
is  the  case  here,  the  warrant  held  by  the  marshals  having  been  issued 
under  the  Fugitive  slave  Act  of  1850.  {Pr'ujg  vs.  Pennsylvania^  IG  Pet. 
R.,  530  ;  affirmed.  14  How.  R.,  13.)  The  Court  in  Slocum  vs.  Mayberry, 
2  Wheat.  R.,  1,  speaking  of  the  act  giving  exclusive  jurisdiction  to  the 
Federal  Courts  over  seizures,  say  :  — "  Any  intervention  of  a  Stale  author- 
ity which  by  taking  the  thing  seized  out  of  the  possession  of  the  officer 
of  the  United  States,  might  obstruct  the  exercise  of  the  jurisdiction, 
would,  unquestionably,  be  a  violation  of  the  act ;  and  the  Federal  Court 
having  cognizance  of  the  seizure,  might  enforce  a  redelivery  of  the  thing 


.  oisr  THE  OHIO  "fugitive  slave  rescue  case."  147 

by  attachment  or  other  summary  process,  against  the  parties  who  should 
divest  such  a  possession."  Gelston  vs.  Jloi/t  is  to  the  same  point,  af- 
firming the  foregoing  case  "  after  a  very  deliberate  consideration."  (3 
Wheat.  R.,  216.)  And  to  the  sa'me  effect  also  is  the  very  able  opinion 
of  Ranney,  J.,  in  Keating  vs.  Spink,  3  0.  St.  Rep.,  119. 

This  rule  results  necessarily  not  only  from  the  nature  of  our  system, 
but  the  express  provision  of  the  Constitution,  Art.  VI.,  par.  2,  declaring 
that  instrument,  and  "  all  laws  made  in  pursuance  of  it,  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land,"  and  binding  upon  all  judges  in  every  State,  "anything 
in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwithstand- 
ing." That  provision  was  moved  in  the  convention  of '87,  by  Luther 
Martin,  as  able  a  lawyer  and  sound  a  State  Rights  man  as  the  coun- 
try ever  produced.  (2  Mad.  Pap.,  1119.)  Nobody  ever  doubted  or 
cavilled  about  it.     (1  Calh.  Works,  252.) 

If,  then,  the  law  be  constitutional,  and  the  authority  conferred  by  it 
exclusive ;  if  it  be,  indeed,  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  then,  when  the 
process  issued  to  enforce  it  is  regular  and  valid  and  from  a  court  of 
competent  jurisdiction,  it  follows  as  an  irresistible  logical  necessity, 
that  that  process  is  supreme  over  all  process  of  the  State,  and  the 
officer  executing  it,  beyond  all  control  of  State  authorities.  Judges  or 
Courts,  or  State  officers  or  State  writs  of  any  kind. 

But  there  is  an  especial  reason  why,  in  the  very  cases  to  obstruct 
which  the  act  of  1856  was  enacted,  any  interference  by  State  process 
or  authorities  is  peculiarly  against  both  the  spirit  and  letter  of  the 
Constitution.  That  class  of  cases  is  specially  provided  for  in  the  com- 
pact, and  in  language  of  peculiar  significance.  It  is  not  in  livi  ordi- 
nary form.  "  No  person  held  to  labor  or  service  in  one  State  escaping 
to  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on 
claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due."  The 
letter — certainly  the  spirit — of  this  section  is  violated  by  any  State 
law,  or  any  State  process  which  delays,  hinders,  or  obstructs  the  right 
of  the  master  to  reclaim  his  slave.  It  was  so  said  by  the  Supreme 
Court  in  Prigg  vs.  Pennsylvania  (16  Peters'  Rep.)  "Its  true  design," 
said  Mr.  Justice  Story — and  did  he  not  love  liberty  quite  '  as  ardently 
as  the  Duchesses  of  Sutherland,  the  Mrs.  Jellabys  and  the  whole  tribe 
of  humanitarian  idolaters  of  the  present  day — "  its  true  design  was  to 
guard  against  the  doctrines  and  principles  prevalent  in  the  non-slave- 
hokling  States,  by  preventing  them  from  intermeddling  with  or  ob- 
structing or  abolishing  the  right  of  the  owners  of  slaves.  The  clause 
manifestly  .contemplates  the  existence  of  a  positive^  unqualified  right  on 
the  part  of  the  owner  of  the  slave,  which  no  State  law  or  regulation 
can  in   any  vfay  qualify,  regulate,  control   or  restrain 


148  YALLANDIGHA3l's   SPEECHES. 

I 

Any  State  law  or  State  regulation  wliich  interrupts,  limits,  delays,  or 
postpones  the  right  of  the  owner  to  the  immediate  possession  of  the 
slave  and  the  immediate  command  of  his  service  and  labor,  operates 
■pro  tanto  a  discharge  of  the  slave  therefrom.  The  question  can  never 
be  how  much  the  slave  is  discharged  from,  but  whether  he  is  discharged 
from  any,  by  the  natural  or  necessary  operation  of  State  laws  or  State 
regulations.  The  clause  contains  a  positive  and  unqualified  recogni- 
tion of  the  right  of  the  owner  in  the  slave,  unaffected  by  any  State  law 
or  regulation  whatsoever."  Taney,  Ch.  J.,  said  :  "  Every  State  laAV 
which  proposes,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  authorize  resistance  or 
obstruction,  is  null  and  void,  and  afibrds  no  justification  to  the  individ- 
ual or  the  officer  of  the  State  who  acts  under  it.  Eveiy  State  law 
which  authorizes  a  vState  officer  to  interfere  with  him  (the  master)  wlien 
he  is  peaceably  removing  his  slave  from  the  State,  is  unconstitutional 
and  void,"  (626-7).  To  the  same  effect,  also  is  the  opinion  of  Judge 
Wayne  (pp.  646,  647,  648)  and  of  Judge  McLean,  (pp.  661,  662); 
and  I  would  ask  the  marked  attention  of  the  Court  to  what  they  have 
said ;  especially  to  the  declaration  of  Judge  ]\IcLean,  that  "  if  the  effect 
of  it  (the  clause  before  read)  depended  in  any  degree  upon  the  con- 
struction of  a  State  by  legislation  or  otherwise,  its  spirit,  if  not  its 
letter,  would  be '  disregarded."  And  yet  this  was  in  1842 — fifteen 
years  ago. 

I  next  refer  the  Court  to  two  cases  in  which  the  writ  De  Homlne 
Replegiando  has  been  resorted  to  in  the  case  of  fugitive  slaves — one  in 
Pennsylvania,  in  1819,  Wright  vs.  Deacon,  6  Serg.  and  R.,  62  ;  and  the 
other  in  New  York,  in  1834,  Jack  vs.  Martin,  12  \Yend.  R.,  311-324. 
In  the  former  the  WTit  was  quashed,  as  having  been  issued  "  in  viola- 
tion of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  (per  Tilghman,  Ch.  J.) 
In  the  other,  judgment  was  rendered  for  the  defendant  upon  the  same 
grounds.  Nelson,  J.,  delivering  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  said  :  "  Here 
is  a  direct  conflict  between  the  powers.  Tlie  very  question  in  the  case 
is,  which  shall  give  way  ?  Shall  the  certificate  of  the  magistrate,  under 
the  law  of  1793,  which  declares  it  shall  be  a  sufficient  warrant  for  re- 
moving the  fugitive  from  labor  to  the  territory  from  which  he  fled,  be 
permitted  to  perform  its  office,  or  shall  the  writ  under  the  State  law 
prevent  it  ?  They  are  antagonistic  and  irreconcilable  powers,"  (324.) 
Both  these  cases  met  the  strong  approval,  in  1851,  of  Shaw,  Ch.  J., 
and  the  whole  Supreme  Bench  of  Massachusetts  in  the  Sims  case,  7 
Cash.  R.,  285 ;  and  I  rely  confidently  op  the  principle  upon  which 
they  were  decided.  I  believe,  also,  that  the  principles  settled  in  the 
cases  before  cited  in  7  Cush.,  26  Pa.  State,  5  McLean,  6  McLean,  and  4 
Law  Reg.,  are  conclusive  upon  this  point  too.  The  opinion  of  Judge 
Nelson,  in  1  Blatchf.,  643,  is  direct  and  most  emphatic;  "When  the 


0]^   THE    OHIO    "fugitive    SLAVE   RESCUE    CASE."    149 

prisoner  is  in  fact  held  under  process  issued  from  a  Federal  tribunal, 
under  the  Constitution,  or  a  law  of  the  United  States,  or  a  treaty,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  officer  not  to  give  him  up  in  any  stage  of  the  proceed- 
ings. He  should  Stand  upon  his  process  and  authority,  and,  if  re- 
sist^ed,  maintain  them  with  all  th$  powers  conferred  upon  him  for  that 
purpose." 

[After  briefly  summing  up  the  points  mad6  in  the  case,  Mr.  Vallandigham 
then  concluded  as  follows:] 

I  have  now,  may  it  please  your  Honor,  finished  what  I  have  to  say 
upon  the  law  and  the  facts  of  the  case.  Its  magnitude,  the  deep  pub- 
lic interest  which  it  everywhere  excites,  and  the  momentous  results 
which,  with  the  certainty  of  the  grave,  must  follow  from  a  failure  by 
the  Judiciary  or  the  Executive  of  the  Union,  to  assert  and  maintain  the 
principles  and  the  rights  which  are  involved  in  it,  are  my  apology  for 
having  so  long  detained  the  Court  in  this  arg-ument.  I  concur  with 
the  Attorney-general  in  all  that  he  has  said  of  the  vast  importance  of 
the  case  now  and  hereafter,  and  the  more  especially  if  the  menaces 
which  he,  the  law  officer  of  the  State  and  her  representative  in  this 
forum,  has  seen  fit  to  more  than  insinuate  in  case  of  an  adverse  de- 
cision, are,  in  the  hour  of  madness,  to  be  carried  out  by  her  authorities 
as  they  are  now  constituted.  Never  before  has  any  part  of  the  Judi- 
ciary of  the  United  States  been  called  upon,  in  the  same  way  and  to 
the  same  extent,  to  affirm  and  to  vindicate  these  rights  and  principles, 
so  essential  to  the  peace  and  harmony  and  the  existence  of  that  beauti- 
ful complex  system  of  government  under  which  for  so  many  years  we 
have  flourished  and  grown  great  and  happy  as  a  people. 

In  another  forum  and  in  other  forms  they  have,  indeed,  been  repeat- 
edly and  vehemently  agitated  and  discussed.  Similar  cases  have,  also, 
now  and  then,  arisen  recently  in  your  courts,  wherein  these  same  doc- 
trines have  been  brought  incidentally  into  debate ;  but  never  before 
have  they  been  presented  in  the  case  of  direct  and  absolute  antagonism 
between  the  laws,  process  and  authority  of  a  State,  and  of  the  United 
States.  The  insurgents  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  in  the  last  century,  did 
not  assume  to  act  under  any  law  of  that  Commonwealth,  and  found  no 
countenance  or  support  from  any  of  her  legally  constituted  authorities. 
No  State  in  the  Union  gave  aid  or  comfort  to  the  conspiracy  of  Aaron 
Burr,  nor  was  the  murder  of  Gorsuch,  and  the  rescue  of  his  slaves, 
pretended  to  have  been  done  under  any  statute  or  process  of  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania.  Neither  did  that  ancient  and  loyal  Commonwealth, 
in  the  yet  later  cases  from  the  county  of  Luzerne,  require  or  permit  her 
Attorney-general,  or  any  of  his  deputies,  to  appear  in  her  behalf  The 
rescue  of  Crafts,  and  the  attempted  rescue  of  Sims  and  of  Bums,  all 
occurred  before  the  age  of  personal  liberty  bills  and  statutes  of  treason, 


150  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

miscalled  acts  of  habeas  corpus ;  and  the  Rosetta  and  Gaines  cases  both 
were  decided  before  the  Capitol  and  Legislative  Halls  of  Ohio  were 
prostituted  to  the  wicked  and  incendiary  purposes  of  domestic  treason 
and  discord. 

State  Judges  and  Courts  have,  indeed,  before  this,  now  and  then  called 
upon  oflScers  of  the  United  States  to  appear  at  their  bar,  bringing  with 
them  the  prisoners  held  in  custody ;  and,  in  one  instance,  the  Supreme 
Court  of  a  State,  and  in  another  a  tribunal  of  this  city,  certainly  not 
the  highest  in  rank  and  dignity,  and  a  Judge  bearing  a  name  not  the 
most  honored  in  military  annals,  assumed  to  overrule  the  Congress, 
the  Executive,  the  inferior  Courts  of  the  Union,  the  highest  judicial 
tribunals  of  most  of  the  States,  and  the  most  respectable  of  the  States, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  pronounce  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Act  of  1850  unconstitutional,  null  and  void.  But,  these 
things  were  done  as  in  the  green  tree ;  these  were,  the  pioneers,  the  ad- 
vance guard  of  the  army  of  sedition  and  civil  discord.  Other  States  also, 
have,  indeed,  enacted  what,  in  that  hour  of  madness  and  folly  which  con- 
founds all  distinctions  and  misapplies  all  names,  they  have  chosen  to  call 
"  Personal  Liberty  Bills,"  organizing  resistance  to  the  authority  and  pro- 
cess of  the  Courts  of  the  Union,  instead  of  the  bold  and  manly  nullifica- 
tion of  South  Carolina,  where  resistance  to  what  she  deemed  and  declared 
unconstitutional  legislation,  put  on  the  form  and  assumed  the  virtues  and 
the  heroic  courage  of  patriotism.  New  England  set  the  example,  and 
we  have  followed  it,  of  instituting  the  petit  treason  of  a  small  and  con- 
temptible warftire  of  process ;  of  writs  and  of  counter-writs  ;  a  war,  not  of 
soldiers  and  artilleiy,  with  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  ordinary  war- 
fare, but  of  sheriffs,  and  constables,  and  bum-bailiffs,  and  justices  of  the 
peace,  and  probate  judges;  of  marshals  and  deputy-marshals;  a  war 
of  dirk-knives  and  single-barrel  pistols,  and  revolving  six-shooting  pistols, 
with  or  without  powder,  caps  and  ball :  a  warfare  in  which,  just  the 
reverse  of  what  happened  at  the  battle  of  Pavia,  nothing  is  lost  except 
honor.  It  is  easy,  indeed,  to  see,  and  melancholy  to  reflect,  that  this 
small  and  contemptible  warfare  of  process,  must  soon  bring  us  to  the 
sterner  conflicts  of  regular  and  organized  military  array,  when  the  armies 
of  the  State  and  the  United  States  shall  meet  in  deadly,  and  most 
bloody,  and  most  disastrous  battle.  We  see  here  and  now  but  the  be- 
ginning of  the  end.  In  other  States,  far  removed  from  the  mysterious 
line  or  parallel  which  separates  the  slave  and  the  free  States,  where  this 
insane  and  belhgerent  legislation  has  prevailed,  no  case,  happily,  of  collis- 
ion has  as  yet  occurred.  But  to  us  here  in  Ohio,  most  unfortunately,  it 
has  been  reserved — as  was  and  is  inevitable  from  our  position  geograph- 
ically, bordering  nearly  five  hundred  miles  upon  the  slave-holding  States 
of  Virginia  and  Kentucky — to  exhibit  the  first  example  of  that  conflict 


OlS"   THE    OHIO  "FUGITIVE    SLAVE    EESCUE    CASE.       151 

of  law  and  autliority  wliicli  the  miscalled  habeas  corpus  act  of  1856  has 
rendered  hievitable.  Here,  just  before  and  in  the  midst  of  us,  behold 
the  first  fruits  of  this  pernicious  and  baleful  legislation.  It  was  said,  the 
other  day,  that  for  more  than  forty  years,  and  until  the  nullification 
ordinance  and  acts  of  South  Carolina,  no  power  to  issue  writs  of  habeas 
corpus,  in  cases  such  as  this  is,  was  conferred  upon  the  Judges  of  the 
Federal  Courts ;  and  that  for  some  years  afterwards,  it  lay  dormant  and 
unexercised.  Very  true,  very  true ;  but  legislation  is  always  the  oflf- 
spring  of  the  general  or  the  special  and  temporary  circumstances  and 
necessities  which  surround  us. 

For  sixty-eight  years,  also,  the  people  of  Ohio  lived  happily,  freely, 
prosperously  and  in  neighborly  intercourse  with  her  sister  States  and 
Territories.  Without  Slavery  in  her  own  limits,  she  yet  had  no  quarrel 
and  waged  no  war  with  those  who  had.  Slaves  repeatedly  escaped  into 
her  territory,  and  were  always  peaceably  and  quietly,  and  ofttimes  without 
officer  or  warrant,  recaptured  and  remanded.  Ohio  herself,  npt  many 
years  ago,  volunteered  to  enact  a  "  fugitive  slave  law,"  not  less  stringent, 
and  certainly  far  more  odious  than  the  now  "  accursed"  act  of  1850.  But 
times  have  changed,  and  we  are  changed  with  them.  Men,  wise  above 
what  is  written — wiser  than  the  fathers  ;  men  of  large  capacity  and  a  wis- 
dom and  sagacity  more  than  ordinary — more  than  human,  or,  of  intel- 
lects narrowed  and  beclouded  by  ia;norance  and  fanaticism,  or  seduced 
by  a  corrupt  and  most  wicked  ambition,  have  discovered  that  the  Con- 
stitution is  all  wrong,  and  its  compacts  all  wrong ;  or,  rather,  that  there 
is  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitution,  and  that  discord  is  piety  and  sedi- 
tion patriotism.  They  have  resolved  to  annul  and  set  at  naught  an  im- 
portant and  most  essential  part  of  the  Constitution  and  of  its  compacts ; 
and  to  compel  the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  succumb  to  their 
resolves,  or  to  bring  the  authorities  of  the  State  and  of  the  Union  into 
deadly  and  most  destructive  conflict.  This  was  the  spirit  which  dictated 
the  Statute — the  Personal  Liberty  Bill — the  so-called  habeas  corpus  act 
of  1856.  There  was  no  pretence  of  necessity  for  its  enactment,  by  rea- 
son of  any  thing  occurring  in  the  ordinary  administration  of  justice  by 
the  Courts  of  the  State.  No  ministerial  officer  of  the  Territory  or  State 
of  Ohio  had  ever  in  any  one  single  instance  during  a  period  of  sixty- 
eight  years,  refused  to  obey  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  But  very  recently 
a  marshal  of  the  United  States  had  refused  obedience  to  the  order  of  a 
State  Court  in  such  a  proceeding;'  and  that  most  eminent  and  upright 
judge,  who,  for  so  many  years,  has  adorned  the  Supreme  Bench  of  the 
Union,  and  of  whom  I  may  say,  as  Mr.  Webster  said  of  John,  Jay,  when 
the  spotless  ermine  of  the  judicial  robe  fell  upon  him,  it  touched  nothing 
not  as  spotless  as  itself — had  justified  him  in  the  refusal  and  discharged 
him  from  confinement  bv  order  of  the  State  Judo-e.     And,  moroove]-. 


152  VALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECUES. 

a  second  time  in  a  like  case,  the  same  marshal  had  declined  submission 
to  an  order  by  another  Court  of  this  City — a  Court  of  Probate,  appoint- 
ed to  administer  upon  the  goods  and  chattels  of  dead  men — requiring 
him  to  release  his  prisoners,  because  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  under  wbich 
he  held  them  in  custody,  was  unconstitutional  and  void ;  and  again  had 
been  sustained-  in  this  very  forum  and  by  your  Honor,  now  upon  the 
bench.  Thus  the  fil^mness  and  integi'ity  of  the  judiciary  of  the  United 
States  had,  so  far,  triumphed  in  the  conflict,  and  saved  the  laws,  process 
and  authority  of  the  Union  from  violation  and  disgrace.  The  bulwark 
of  the  Constitution  remained  impregnable.  Possession  was  found  full 
nine  points  in  the  law.  Certainly,  therefore,  if  possession  could  but  be 
had,  in  the  first  instance,  of  the  bodies  of  the  fugitives  or  others  in  custody, 
the  great  end  of  obstmcting  and  defeating  the  constitutional  provision 
for  the  reclamation  of  escaping  slaves,  and  the  act  in  pursuance  of  it, 
would  be  attained,  and,  accordingly,  as  I  have  alrea'dy  established,  for 
the  first  j:ime  in  the  history  of  this  State,  or,  indeed,  of  any  State,  the 
writ  of  personal  replevin  in  the  case  of  prisoners  held  under  judicial 
process,  was  introduced  into  our  legislation,  and  one  officer  commanded 
to  take,  by  force,  from  another  .officer,  the  prisoners  held  in  his  custody. 
Collision  between  State  officers  was  not  expected,  and,  indeed,  cannot  well 
arise.  But  in  the  case  of  independent  sovereignties  exercising  authori- 
ties and  executing  independent  process  within  the  same  territory,  it  was 
expected  and  intended — I  stand  justmed  by  the  facts  in  affirming  it — 
that  a  direct  and  absolute  conflict  would  and  should  occur.  To  this 
State  of  Ohio,  therefore,  I  am  sorry  to  say — in  this  district  of  the  State — 
and  to  the  county  officers  of  Clai-k,  Greene  and  Champaign,  it  has,  in  an 
evil  hour,  been  allotted  to  exhibit  the  first  example  of  the  collision,  which 
was  inevitable  between  the  two  Governments  to  which,  in  equal  right, 
though  unequal  degTce,  the  rights  and  powers  of  the  people  of  this 
State  have  been  committed.  The  case  has  arisen — the  direct  issue 
has  been  presented — and  it  must  be  met.  It  is  a  question  of  power 
between  these  two  depositaries.  I  repeat  it — a  question  of  Poioer, 
not  of  right.  When  South  Carolina  undertook  to  nullify  a  statute  of 
Congress,  and  to  set  herself  in  array  against  the  government  of  the 
Union,  slie  made  it  a  question  of  Constitutional  right.  Recognizing  her 
duty,  to  obey  the  Constitution  and  all  laws  in  pursuance  of  it — no  matter 
how  odious  or  unjust — she  denied  the  power  of  Congress  to  enact  the 
Statute.  But  the  learned  doctors  and  professors  of  modei*n  nullification 
— the  whdle  Collegia  amhtibinrli  et  ■pharmacopolm — forced  to  admit  the 
constitutionality  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act;  or,  at  least,  the  right  of  the 
people  and  the  States  of  the  South,  under  the  Constitution,  to  demand 
of  us  the  reclamation  of  their  fugitives — appeal  to  a  "  liiijher  law  "  than 
the  Con-^titution,  and  denounce  the  ren<lition  of  fugitives  from  slavery 


ON   THE    OHIO  "  rilGITIVE    SLAVE   EESCUE    CASE.      153 

under  any  law  or  any  Constitution,  as  against  this  liiglier  law  of  con- 
science, and  tlierefore  null  and  void.  Why  have  they  who  control  just  now 
the  legislation  of  the  State,  sought  to  bring  about  this  conflict  between 
the  Courts  and  miDisterial  officers  of  the  two  Governments,  and  by 
State  Statutes  and  State  process — through  the  machinery  of  writs  of- 
habeas  corpus  and  replevin — by  sheriffs,  and  constables,  and  probate 
judges,  and  justices  of  the  peace,  to  harass,  impede,  and  obstruct  or  pre- 
vent the  execution  of  this  law  ? 

What  argument  have  We  heard  here  in  this  Court  ?  Not  that  the 
Act  is  unconstitutional.  If  it  were,  the  process  held  by  these  deputies 
was  void  process,  and  they  were  engaged  in  the  commission  of  an  illegal 
act.  That  would  have  been  a  conclusive  answer  to  this  whole  proceed- 
ing. But  it  has  not  been  alleged.  That  question  is  settled, — absolutely 
put  at  rest.  Mr.  Webster  said  six  years  ago,  that  no  "  respectable  law- 
yer "  would  maintain  the  unconstitutionality  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act 
of  1850.  I  am  confident  your  Honor  would  not  have  heard  an  argu- 
ment upon  the  question.  No  ;  we  have  been  told  that  the  law  is  harsh ; 
that  it  is  cruel  and  unjust ;  that  it  is  odious  and  distasteful  to  the  peo- 
ple. This  is  the  apology  for  personal  liberty  bills,  and  acts  of  habeas 
corpus,  so  called,  and  all  the  other  hindrances  and  obstructions,  which 
have  been  interposed  to  its  execution.  For  this  cause,  and  this  cause 
only,  it  has  been  declared— not  here,  certainly,  but  elsewhere — that  it 
cannot  and  shall  not  be  put  in 'force — at  least  within  the  "sovereign 
states  "  of  Clark,  Greene  and  Champaign :  that  wheresoever  else  it  may 
be  obeyed,  there  it  is,  and  shall  remain,  a  dead  letter  forever.  Upon 
pretexts  and  by  appeals  and  seditious  declarations  such  as  these  are,  the 
people,  or  a  part  of  the  people,  I  trust  a  very  small  part,  but  enough, 
ne\^ertheleluss,  to  do,  or  to  threaten,  great  mischief — have  been  stirred 
up  to  the  madness  and  folly  of  setting  themselves  in  array  against  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  and  under  the  color  and  forms  of 
State  statutes  and  State  process,  of  resisting  the  execution  of  its  laws 
and  the  process  of  its  courts,  and  thus  of  precipitating  upon  us  the  crisis 
which  wicked  and  designing  men  have  so  long  labored  to  bring  about. 

I  have  no  instruction,  may  it  please  your  Honor,  here,  before  this 
tribunal,  to  discuss  the  question  whether  the- Act  of  1850  be  justly  ob- 
noxious to  these  reproaches  or  not.  With  that  question,  this  Court  has 
no  concern.  Your  Honor,  I  am  sure,  is  no  authorized  expounder  of  the 
"  higher  law"  as  it  is  taught  in  this  day,  and  still  less  sits  here  to  en- 
force it.  But  I  may  be  pennitted  to  suggest,  that  in  its  present  form 
substantially,  it  has  been  the  law  of  the  land  for  more  than  sixty  years ; 
that  by  nearly  one-half  of  the  States  of  this  Union  it  is  regarded  as  both 
reasonable  and  just ;  by  a  large  portion  of  the  people  of  all  the  States 
as  alike  necessary  and  proper,  and  by  all  the  States  except  one,  and  by 


154  vallandigham's  speeches. 

all  "respectable  lawyers" — I  quote  the  words  of  Mr.  Webster,  non 
metis  hie  scrm&  est,  he  is  responsible  for  it,  not  I, — as  in  strict  confor- 
mity with  the  Constitution.  If  it  be,  indeed,  liarsh,  cruel  and  unjust,  it 
is  not  because  it  provides  means  improper  or  more  than  adequate  to 
•attain  its  end — they  have,  indeed,  proved  scarce  sufBcient  as  they  are — 
but  because  it  remands  the  "  panting  fugitive"  to  slavery, — "  the  head 
and  front  of  its  offending  hath  this  extent ;  no  more."  If  so,  then  it  is 
the  Constitution  which  is  fiarsh,  cruel  and  unjust.  It  is  the  Constitu- 
tion which  is  odious  and  distasteful  to  that  portion  of  the  people  of  this 
State,  who  entertain  these  sentiments,  and  who  make  them  the  reason 
or  the  pretext  for  their  resistance  to  the  process  and  authority  of  the 
United  States.  It  is  the  Constitution  which  must  be  abrogated  or 
nullified,  and  they  who  execute  or  would  maintain  and  defend  it,  made 
odious  and  set  at  defiance. 

But  these  are  doctrines  and  notions  that  find  no  countenance  or  sup- 
port within  these  walls.  Here,  at  least,  they  may  not,  and  will  not,  be 
hearkened  to  with  patience.  I  have  a  right  then,  to  repeat  again  that 
this  is  solely  a  question  of  power  between  the  two  Governments,  and  it  is 
fortunate,  perhaps,  for  us,  that  this  issue  is  thus  clearly  and  directly  pre- 
sented here  and  in  this  case.  It  is  here,  and  here  in  all  its  breadth  and 
fulness  and  extent, — a  direct  and  inevitable  conflict  of  law  and  process 
between  the  State  and  the  United  States.  It  is  here,  the  first,  the  natu- 
ral, the  necessary  fruits  of  the  insane  and  aggressive  legislation  which,  for 
some  years,  has  prevailed  in  several  of  the  States  of  this  Union,  itself 
both  the  effect  and  the  cause,  the  offspring  and  the  parent  of  the  violent 
and  highly-excited  public  sentiment  which  has  already  resulted,  first,  in 
this  resistance  to  the  process  of  your  courts,  and  finally  in  the  melan- 
choly and  murderous  tragedy  of  the  other  day.  The  exigence  of  the 
writ  to  the  marshals  commanded  them  to  take  and  bring  the  bodies  of 
their  prisoners  to  Cincinnati,  before  a  commissioner  of  the  United 
States.  The  exigence  of  the  writ  to  the  sherift'  commanded  him  to  take 
those  same  prisoners  from  the  custody  of  the  marshals,  and  carry  them 
to  Urbana,  before  a  State  Judge.  Both  could  not  be  obeyed.  Eesist- 
ance  and  collision  were  inevitable ;  and  they  followed,  aggravated  and 
embittered  exceedingly  by  the  violent  and  fanatical  hostile  sentiments 
of  those  who  pursued  and  denounced  the  marshals  as  ruffians,  while 
they  encouraged  and  applauded  the  prisoners  as  the  martyrs  of  liberty. 

The  case  is  here,  and  to  the  marshals  concerned,  it  is  of  the  last  and 
most  vital  importance.  Their  liberties  are  at  stake.  If  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  powerless,  or  is  unwilling  to  protect  them 
in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  which  it  has  imposed  upon  them,  it  is 
easy  to  see  what  the  result  of  a  trial  must  be  in  the  midst  of  the  deep 
excitement  which  prevails  in  the  counties  where  these  acts  were  done — 


ON   THE   OHIO    "  FUGITIVE    SLAVE   KESCUE    CASE."    155 

stimulated,  as  that  excitement  lias  been,  day  by  day,  througb  the  press, 
in  public  assemblies,  and  upon  the  public  highways,  by  the  most  wilful 
and  reckless  misrepresentation  of  facts,  and  the  most  savage  and  wanton 
denunciation  of  those  deputies  as  pirates  and  outlaws.  In  ordinary 
times,  and  upon  other  subjects,  the  people  of  the  counties  concerned, 
are  no  doubt  as  honest,  as  intelligent,  as  upright,  as  the  people  of  any 
other  counties.  But  in  this  case  and  upon  the  question  involved  in  it, 
they  have  been  wrought  up  to  madness  and  folly.  In  resisting  the  exe- 
cution of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  they  think  they  do  God's  service. 
With  them,  or  rather  the  honest  but  misguided  portion  of  them,  it  is  a 
sort  of  superstition — a  species  of  religious  fanaticism  ;  a  motive  and  an 
element  in  popular  commotions,  as  all  history  attests,  the  most  power- 
ful and  controlling.  There  are,  doubtless,  hundreds  among  them,  as 
among  others  elsewhere,  who,  in  the  crusade  against  this  law  of  the 
United  States,  are  ready  to  adopt  and  repeat  the  rallying  battle-cry  of 
the  Saracens :  "  Paradise  is  before  us  and  hell-fire  at  our  backs  !"  In 
such  a  state  of  public  sentiment,  I  have  no  confidence  in  any  class  of 
men.  It  is  this  self-same  spirit  which,  in  every  age,  has  lighted  up  the 
fires  of  persecution,  and  put  thousands  to  death  with  every  aggravation 
of  torture  and  cruelty.  It  is  this  spirit — the  true  spirit  of  the  "Higher 
Law" — which  sets  at  defiance  every  claim  of  justice,  every  call  of  hu- 
manity, every  law  of  God,  of  nature,  and  of  man.  In  the  ninth  century, 
in  the  earlier  aires  of  the  Mohammedan  faith,  other  reliofions  beincr  also 
tolerated,  the  fire  worshippers  of  Persia  possessed  a  temple  in  the  city 
of  Herat ;  which,  in  the  midst  of  a  religious  tumult,  was  attacked  and 
razed  to  the  ground,  and  a  mosque  erected  upon  the  site  where  it  had 
stood.  The  Magi  appealed  for  justice  and  restitution  to  the  Caliph;  but 
four  thousand  Mohammedan  citizens  of  Herat,  of  a  grave  character  and 
mature  age,  deliberately  *and  unanimously  swore  that  the  idolatrous 
temple  had  never  existed.  Human  nature  is  the  same  in  every  age. 
The  people  of  the  times  and  country  we  live  in,  are  no  better,  by  nature, 
than  the  people  of  any  other  country,  or  any  other  period  of  the  world's 
history.  The  people  of  the  counties  of  Clark,  Greene,  and  Champaign, 
though  no  worse,  are  no  better,  either,  than  the  people  of  other  coun- 
ties and  States  of  this  Union ;  and,  pardon  me,  gentlemen,  they  have 
already  prejudged  this  case  and  pronounced  upon  the  guilt  of  these 
deputies. 

But  great,  may  it  please  your  Honor,  as  the  interest  of  the  deputies' 
stake  in  this  question  may  be  personally,  it  is  not  they  who  are  chiefly 
concerned.  The  whole  people  of  the  district,  of  the  State,  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  of  other  nations,  and  of  the  ages  which  shall  succeed  the  age 
we  live  in,  are  alike  and  most  profoundly  interested  in  the  result.     • 

It  is  a  question  of  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  our  Government,  and, 


156  VALLANDIGHAM  ^    SPEECHES. 

with  it,  of  free  government  all  over  the  globe,  and  in  all  coming  time. 
If  any  one  State  of  this  Union  may  disregard  or  annul  any  one  part  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  or  any  one  law  in  pursuance  of  it. 
because  in  its  judgment  it  is  harsh,  cruel  and  unjust,  any  other  State 
may,  in  like  manner  and  upon  like  pretexts,  disobey  and  set  at  naught 
any  other  part  of  this  same  Constitution,  or  any  law  under  it.  If  the 
people,  or  part  of  the  people,  of  Ohio  may  prohibit  or  practically  pre- 
vent the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  within  her  limits,  the  peo- 
ple, or  a  part  of  them,  of  South  Carolina,  may  also  annul  and  disobey 
the  acts  to  abolish  the  slave  trade ;  and  by  State  statutes  and  State  pro- 
cess, by  habeas  corpus  and  replevin",  through  her  ministerial  oflScers  and 
her  courts,  vex  and  harass,  and  finally  beat  down  and  render  powerless 
the  Judiciary  of  the  Union.  How  long,  then,  can  the  governments  of 
either  the  States  or  the  United  States  endure  ;  and  what,  above  all,  are 
they  worth  while  they  do  endure  ?     The  end  of  these  things  is  death. 

But  I  am  confident  that  this  Court  is  prepared,  that  the  whole  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  is  prepared  to  meet  this  issue  just  as  it  is 
presented.  And  I  tell  Mr.  Attorney-General,  and  through  him  the  Ex- 
ecutive of  the  State,  whose  vain  defiance  he  has  this  4ay  borne  here  to 
this  presence,  that  it  is  not  to  be  awed  by  threats,  nor  to  be  put  down 
by  denunciation,  nor  to  be  turned  aside  from  its  firm  purpose  to  enforce 
its  laws  and  the  process-  of  its  courts,  in  any  event,  at  all  hazards,  and 
-without  respect  to  persons  or  to  States,  whether  those  States  be  Rhode 
Island  or  Ohio.  And  whenever  this  Court  or  any  other  court  of  the 
Union  shall  have  judicially  ascertained  and  declared  the  rights  and  pow- 
ers of  the  Government  to  execute  its  process  in  any  pending  case,  I 
know  that  the  Executive  of  the  Union  stands  prepared  faithful!}',  fear- 
lessly, and  sternly,  if  need  be,  and  by  the  w^ole  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment, to  preserve,  protect  and  defend  the  Constitution  from  all  the 
assaults  of  its  enemies. 


THE    OHIO    C02s TESTED    ELECTIO]S".  157 


ARGUMENT 

In  reply  to  the  couyisel  for  the  Returned  Member,  in  the  Contested 
Election  Case  of  Vallandigham  and  Camjibell,  before  the  Committee  of 
Elections,  February  27,  1858. 

I. As    TO    THE    SUFFICIENCY    OF    THE    NOTICE    OF    CONTEST, 

The  specific  objection  urged  is,  that  the  names  of  the  illegal  voters 
are  not  set  forth. 

I  answer,  that  even  prior  to  the  act  of  1851,  in  a  majority  of  cases, 
this  had  not  been  required ;  that  the  act  is  silent  upon  the  subject,  sub- 
stituting a  provision  that  ten  days'  notice  of  the  names  of  the  witnesses 
proposed  for  examination  shall  bo  given  ;  that  the  language  of  the  act  is 
''  specify  particularly  the  [/rounds  upon  which  he  relies  in  the  contest;" 
that  gfou\ids  are  one  thing,  and  names  of  voters  quite  another ;  that 
every  "  ground"  of  illegality,  known  to  the  Ohio  constitution  and  stat- 
utes relating  to  elections,  is  set  forth,  and  cases  under  nearly  all  of  them 
established  by  tlie  testimony,  and  that  there  are  manv  obvious  reasons 
against  requiring  tl^e  names  of  illegal  votere  to  be  set  forth  in  the  no- 
tice of  contest,  or  the  answer  ;  and  among  them  this  :  That  as  the  notice 
and  answer  cannot  be  renewed  or  amended,  the  parties  would  be  pre- 
cluded from  proof  of  any  illegal  votes  discovered  after  the  thiity  days 
limited  in  either  case. 

I  answer,  further,  that  the  returned  member  himself  has  not,  in  his 
answer,  set  forth  the  name  of  so  much  even  as  one  illegal  voter. 

As  to  precedents :  fifteen  cases,  including  those  of  the  present  ses- 
sion, have  arisen  under  the  law ;  nine  of  which,  excluding  the  one  now 
in  hearing,  were  contested  upon  the  ground  of  illegal  voting,  and  yet  in 
not  one  have  the  names  of  the  illegal  voters  been  set  forth.  Twice  the 
objection  has  been  directly  made  and  overruled.  In  the  very  first  case 
under  the  act,  Wright  vs.  Fuller,  1851-52,  it  was  so  held,  (House  Re- 
port, No.  136;)  and  yet  again  in  Otero  \s.  Gallegos,  1855-56.  Ob- 
jection in  this  case  had  been  taken,  in  the  answer  of  the  returned 
delegate,  to  the  omission  of  the  names  of  the  illegal  voters.  Yet  the 
committee  said :  "  The  notice  was  quite  sufficient  to  authorize  the 
taking  of  the  testimony.  Xo  such  objection  was  made  by  the  sitting 
member  or  his  counsel  at  the  time  of  taking  the  depositions ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  appeared  and  cross-examined  the  witnesses  without  any 
objection  whatever ;  and  if  he  had  no  notice  at  all,  but  had  appeared 
and  cross-examined,  he  would  have  been  estopped  fi-om  setting  up  the 
want  of  notice.'" — (House  Eeports,  1855-56,  vol.  1,  Xo.  90,  p.  2.) 
Three  times,  also,  it  has  been  urc^ed  in  contested  elections  in  Philadel- 


158  VALLAXDI(iIIAM''ri    SPEECHES. 

phia;  Lelar's  case,  1846;   Kncas's  case,  1851;   Cassidy's  case,  185Y  ; 
and  each  time  overruled  by  the  court. 

If  there  be  any,  the  remotest  resemblance  between  the  notice  in  this 
contest  and  the  one  in  Archer  vs.  Allen.,  in  the  last  Congress,  it  might 
be  an  ingenious  though  perplexing  intellectual  exercise  to  point  it  out ; 
yet  even  that  notice  the  majority  of  the  committee  held  sufficient. 

ii. as  to  the  validity  of    the    election    in    the    second  ward, 

Dayton. 

I  leave  this  upon  the  argument  heretofore  submitted,  adding  the  case 
of  Otero  vs.  Gallcgos,  just  cited,  wherein  the  prior  congressional  prece- 
dents are  referred  to  and  approved. 

I  remark  also  as  to  the  case  so  strongly  relied  on  by  the  counsel  for 
the  refcurned  member,  The  People  vs.  Cook,  14  Barb.,  245  : 

1.  That  that  was  not  an  ordinary  contested  election,  but  a  prqceeding 
in  quo  warranto  known  to  the  common  law,  the  parties  upon  the  record 
being  the  State  and  the  incumbent ;  and  it  is  expressly  said  by  one  of 
the  judges  (p.  326)  that  "  the  result  of  an  election,  when  controverted 
in  court,  is  like  a  judgment  sued  upon.  We  have  no  power  to  reverse  it 
for  errors  in  conducting  it,  and  thus  give  those^oncerned  in  it  a  re- 
trial." If  this  be  the  doctrine  in  contested  elections  before  Congress,  it 
is  time,  after  the  lapse  of  seventy  years,  that  it  should  begin  to  be  known 
and  acted  on.  It  is  contradicted  by  every  precedeiit  from  1789  to  this 
day. 

2.  There  is  a  broad  distinction,  wholly  overlooked  by  the  court,  be- 
tween the  want  of  authority  on  the  part  of  an  inspector  of  elections  to 
act  as  such,  and  a  mere  irregularity  by  him  in  conducting  it.  Yet  the 
omission  to  take  the  oath  of  office  has  always,  in  Congress,  been  held  a 
fatal  defect.  The  objection  made  in  the  case  from  Barboar  was  to  the 
form  only  of  the  oath.  It  was  an  apex  juris  not  fit  to  be  urged  ;  for  if 
a  Jew  be  sworn  on  the  Gospels,  and  testify  falsely,  he  may  be  convicted 
of  perjury. — (1  Grcenleaf  Ev.,  §  371.) 

But  the  case  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  a  most  extraordinary  misappli- 
cation or  perversion  of  the  rule  that  the  acts  of  an  officer  de  facto  are 
good  and  valid  as  regards  the  public  and  third  persons.  It  may,  indeed, 
be  sound  and  pertinent  in  proceedings  on  quo  warranto,  but  never, 
riever  in  an  ordinary  contested  election  before  a  legislative  tribunal ; 
otherwise,  every  intruder  into  the  responsible  office  of  inspector  of  elec- 
tions would  become  invested  at  once  with  authority  which  could  not  be 
questioned  elsewhere.  By  violence  alone,  and  that  at  once  and  at  the 
polls,  could  the  remedy  be  applied  and  the  intruder  ousted.  If  this  is 
to  be  the  doctrine  in  cases  like  this,  then,  in  a  little  while,  at  every  hus- 
tings, the  only  struggle  will  te  to  secure  at  the  outset,  and  by  force  or 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED    ELECTION".  159 

fraud,  the  judges  of  election  ;  and  in  such  a  conflict,  not  the  will  of  the 
people,  but  tlie  strength  or  cunning  of  the  party  first  upon  the  ground, 
must  prevail.  . 

TIL As    TO    THE    NON-PRODUCTION    OF    THE    POLL- BOOKS,    OR    CERTIFIED 

COPIES    OF    THEM,  TO    PROVE    THAT    THE    ALLEGED     ILLEGAL    VOTER    DID 
VOTE. 

I  answer,  first :  That  the  poll-books  may  be  the  best  evidence  to 
prove  that  a  name  corresponding  with  that  of  the  person  challenged  is 
upon  the  list  of  voters  ;  but  they  do  not  prove  that  that  identical  person 
voted.  Suppose  the  name  of  John  Smith  to  be  found  upon  them,  and 
It  is  proved  that  a  John  Smith  living  within  the  same  precinct  or  town- 
ship was  not  entitled  to  vote  ;  non  sequittcr,  that  the  John  Smiths  are 
the  same.  There  must  be  in  every  case  some  parol  proof,  therefore, 
that  the  person  challenged  did  vote.  The  production  of  the  list  is,  at 
best,  but  corroborative  or  cumulative  evidence.  The  testimony  of  John 
Smith  that  he  did  vote,  is  better  evidence  of  the  fact  than  the  produc- 
tion of  a  list  containing:  the  name  of  one  John  Smith. 

It  is  said  that  the  law  requires  the  list  to  be  kept,  and  that,  therefore, 
the  fact  can  be  proved  only  by  the  production  of  the  record.  Ifon 
sequifur,  again.  Th«  fact  is  still  "  did  the  John  Smith,  who  is  challenged, 
vote  at  the  election  ?"  and  not  "  is  the  name  of  one  John  Smith  upon 
the  list  of  voters  ?"  And,  accordingly,  it  has  been  repeatedly  held  that 
where  registers  of  marriage,  birth,  death,  and  the  like,  are  required  by 
the  law  to  be  kept,  it  is  not  necessary,  nor  yet  sufficient,  to  produce 
them  even  in  a  criminal  prosecution. — (1  Greenleaf  Ev.,  §  86  ;  9  Mass., 
493  ;  11  Mass.,  92  ;  3  Har.  &  McH.,  393  ;  Rus.  &  Ry.,  109.)  So,  also, 
that  a  man  was  elected  to  and  holds  a  certain  ofiice  may  be  proved  by 
parol ;  and  I  concede  that  the  fact  that  no  name  corresponding  to  that 
of  the  person  alleged  to  have  voted  appears  upon  the  poll-list,  is  pre- 
sumptive evidence  that  no  such  person  did  vote. 

2d.  As  ta  the  congressional  precedents,  the  point  has  never  been 
made  or  decided,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  find,  and  the  usage  has 
not  been  uniform.  Proof  upon  this  point,  such  as  is  produced  here, 
was  repeatedly  received  in  the  Broad  Seal  case,  as  in  the  instance  of 
the  vote  of  Ezekiel  Patterson,  a  colored  person.  "Jacob  W.  Davis,  a 
witness  sworn  on  the  part  of  John  B.  Aycrigg  and  others,  saith  :  I  am 
clerk  for  the  township  of  Mansfield,  and  was  in  1838  ;  I  have  the  poll- 
list  here ;  the  names  of  Isaac  N.  Zerwilliger,  Charles  T.  Poole,  James 
Wamsly,  William  V.  Schureman,  and  Christopher  Patterson,  usually 
called  Eke,  (on  the  assessor's  duplicate  it  is  Ezekiel,)  are  on  the  poll-list." 
— (3  House  Rep.,  1839,  1840,  No.  541,  p.  95;  and  see  the  Report 
passirii.)  And  as  to  declarations  of  a  person  that  he  had  voted,  the 
poll-list  not  being  produced,  and  no  proof  of  its  contents  given,  and  no 


100  yallandigham's  speeches. 

other  evidence  of  the  fact  of  voting-,  except  his  own  deehirations  proved 
by  third  persons. — (Sec  p.  73  of  Report,  and  23  of  the  Journal  of  the 
Committee.) 

As  to  the  only  precedent  cited  by  the  counsel,  Otero  vs.  Gallegos,  poll- 
books  were  produced  from  only  three  counties.  From  six  counties  there 
were  none  introduced,  and  yet  a  part  of  the  testimony  related  to  illegal 
votes  cast  in  those  counties. 


IV. — That  the  abstract  of  votes  in  the  district  at  the  election, 

OR  COPY  or    TUB    retcr 
the  sixty  days  LIMITED 


OR  COPY  OF    TUB    RETURN'S,  AVAS    XOT    "  OBTAINED    OR    TAKEn"  WITHIN 


I  answer,  1st,  that  it  is  at  least  doubtful  whether  it  be  my  place  to 
produce  it  at  all.  It  is  no  part  of  my  case.  I  claim  nothing  under  it. 
Upon  its  face  it  shows  nineteen  majority  against  me,  and  by  so  much 
would  diminish  mj  vote  as  it  appears  upon  the  testimony.  In  the  first 
case  under  the  law,  Wright  vs.  Fuller,  1851,  it  appears  from  the  report 
of  the  committee  that  it  was  the  sitting  member  who  produced  the  re- 
turns before  them. — (Ilouse  Report  No.  136,  page  1  ;  and  see  Munroe 
vs.  Jackson,  House  report,  volume  2,  page  403.) 

But  what  is  the  true  construction  of  the  act  of  1851  ?  I  maintain 
that  the  restriction  in  the  ninth  section  applies  solely  to  oral  testiraony. 

I  argue  this,  l^t,  from  the  language  of  the  restriction  :  "  No  testimony 
shall  be  taken  after  sixty  days,"  &c.  Testimony  means  the  declaration 
or  affirmation  under  oath,  of  a  living  witness. — (Webster's  Diet. ;  2  Bou- 
vier's  Law  Diet.  ;  2  Burrill's  Law  Diet. ;  1  Greenleaf  Ev.,  §§  1,  307-,  308  ; 
2  Daniel  Chy.  Prac,  1003,  1030.)  The  distinction  is  not  between  tes- 
timony and  evidence,  but  between  testimony  and  documentary  evidence. 
2d.  From  the  context.  The  entire  act,  except  the  first  and  second  sec- 
tions, refers  exclusively  to  the  examination  of  witnesses.  The  eighth 
section  provides  for  the  production  of  documentary  evidence  in  connec- 
tion with  the  testiraony  of  witnesses.  Examples  of  this  may  be  found 
on  pages  53  and  59  of  the  printed  testimony.  So,  too,*under  the  act 
of  January  23,  iTOS,  of  which  the  statute  of  1851  is  but  almost  a  literal 
transcript,  the  House,  by  resolution  on  the  5th  of  the  June  following, 
provided  for  the  introduction  of  documentary  evidence  during  that  Con- 
gress, as  a  matter  not  included  witliinthe  law. — (Journal,  page  323  ;  and 
Cont.  Elec,  16.)  3.  From  the  object  of  the  act.  Judge  Strong,  the  au- 
thor, or  at  least  reporter  of  the  bill,  said,  during  the  debate  upon  it : 
'•'■■The  testimony  is  v)holly  that  of  tvitncsses.''^ — (Cong.  Globe,  1850-'51, 
page  109.)  4.  By  analogy  to  the  chancery  practice.  There,  although 
no  testimony  can  be  taken  after  "  publication,"  yet  documentary  evi- 
dence, even  when  a  witness  is  to  be  examined  along  with  it,  may  be 
introduced  at  the  hearing. 


THE    OHIO    C02^TESTED    ELECTIOIJ'.  161 

Upon  the  precedents  in  Congress,  since  the  law  and  prior  to  the 
present  session,  the  question  is  plain.  In  only  two  cases  has  the  "  ab- 
stract" been  procured  or  taken  within  the  sixty  days.  In  one  case  it 
was  before  the  sei'vice  of  the  answer.  In  five,  including  Archer  vs. 
Allen,  it  was  months  subsequent  to  the  expiration  of  the  time  limited 
for  "  taking  testimony."  In  one  of  these  five,  Clarke  vs.  Hall,  no  notice 
t)f  contest  was  served,  other  than  the  memorial  of  the  contestant,  nearly 
eighteen  months  after  the  election ;  yet  the  committee  of  the  last  Con- 
gress received  and  considered  the  documentary  evidence  procured  in 
the  cases.  So,  too,  in  another,  Milliken  vs.  Fuller,  the  notice  was  not 
served  till  near  thirteen  months  after  the  election  ;  yet  the  same  kind  of 
evidence  was  received  and  acted  upon  by  the  same  committee.  And 
in  the  contested  election  for  sheriff"  in  one  of  the  counties  of  this  same 
third  district,  in  1856-'57,  the  book  of  returns  was  brought  into  court 
and  received  on  the  third  day  of  the  hearing,  although  the  time  for 
'•  taking  testimony"  had  expired  more  than  two  months  previously. 
And,  in  addition  to  all  this,  the  returned  member  himself  evidently  so 
construed  the  law  as  to  admit  of  the  production  of  documentary  evi- 
dence at  any  time ;  for,  although  in  his  answer  he  claims  under  the 
governor's  certificate,  he  did  not  put  it  in  evidence  during  the  time 
limited,  and  in  the  answer  expressly  proposes  to  confine  his  proof  du- 
ring that  period  to  mattere  provable  by  witnesses. 

If  this  "  abstract"  could  be  established  only  by  witnesses,  then  there 
might  be  more  plausibility  in  the  objection.  But  coming  authentica- 
ted by  the  great  seal  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  it  proves  itself  upon  produc- 
tion.—(1  Greenl.  Ev.,  §§  4,  479,  489;  4  Dal.  Rep.,  416.) 

The  Secretary  of  State  is  the  proper  person,  and  is  authorized  to 
make  the  copy  here  produced. — (Swan's  Statutes  of  Ohio,  345,  §§  36, 
37,  38,  39 ;  867,  §  1  ;  and  361,  §  1.) 


V. As  TO  THE  ADMISSIBILITY  OF    EVIDENCE  CALLED  "HEARSAY." 

The  importance  of  the  question  in  all  cases,  but  especially  where  the 
election  is  by  ballot,  rather  than  its  bearing  upon  this  particular  con- 
test, demands  for  it  a  full  consideration. 

I  remark,  however,  1.  That  much  of  what  is  included  by  the  returned 
member's  counsel  within  the  term,  is  not  hearsay,  but  original  evidence. 
■2.  That  a  part  of  this  hearsay — for  example,  that  relating  to  residence 
— is  such  as  is  continually  received  by  courts  in  ordinary  litigation. — 
(5  Harris  &  J.,  97 ;  2  Bing.,  104.)  Declarations  made  at  the  polls, 
whether  under  oath  or  not,  are  also  clearly  within  this  proposition  as 
part  of  the  res  gestce.  3.  That  both  parties  offer  the  same  kind  of  testi- 
11 


162  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

iiiony  in  this  regard.  4.  That  it  is  not  the  adequacy,  but  the  admissi- 
biliti/,  of  the  evidence  which  is  in  question. 

But  to  the  main  point. 

This  is  not  the  first  time  this  question  has  been  presented  in  legisht- 
tive  bodies ;  and  had  it  been  tested  by  the  principles  and  precedents 
which  have  prevailed  there,  I  should  have  added  nothing  to  the  argu- 
nlent  heretofore  submitted.  It  has  not  been  so  argued,  but  upon  rules 
and  precedents  known  only  to  forensic  courts,  where  a  like  case  never 
did  and  never  can  arise  in  the  exercise  of  its  ordinary  jurisdiction.  I 
propose  to  meet  the  argument,  Jirst,  upon  this  very  ground,  and  to  dis- 
cuss it  just  as  I  would  had  the  case  arisen  now  for  the  first  time  in  the 
usual  course  of  litigation  in  a  court  of  common  law. 

All  evidence  to  be  admissible  must  be  relevant — that  is,  tend  to  prove 
or  disprove  the  issue.  All  relevant  evidence  \s  prima  facie  admissible; 
its  rejection  is  always  the  exception.  Thus,  whenever  a  court  is  equally 
divided,  the  objection  to  evidence  fails. 

Among  the  exceptions  is  a  class  denominated  "  hearsay,"  which  is  al- 
ways heard  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  but  which,  in  judicial  proceed- 
ings, is  rejected. 

Upon  this  rule  excluding  hearsay  evidence,  the  returned  member's 
counsel  relies.  I  rest  upon  the  exceptions,  of  which  there  is  a  vast 
number ;  none,  indeed,  of  course,  presenting  the  exact  question  here ; 
but  this  is  solely  because  it  never  arose  or  could  arise  in  ordinary  liti- 
gation. 

What  would  have  been  the  decision  had  it  so  arisen,  may  readily  be 
inferred  from  a  summary  of  the  numerous  cases  constitiiting  exceptions, 
adjudicated  in  a  long  series  of  years,  as  each  several  exigency  arose. 

These  exceptions  are  founded  primarily  upon  the  doctrine  that  "  all 
rules  of  evidence  are  adopted  for  practical  purposes  in  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  and  must  be  so  applied  as  to  promote  the  ends  for  which 
they  were  designed." — (1  Greenleaf  Ev.,  §  83.) 

Hearsay  consists  strictly  of  the  declarations  of  persons  not  parties  to 
the  controversy.  Admissions  by  the  parties  are  substitutionary  evidence. 
—{Rid.,  §  169.) 

Now,  assuming,  what  is  not  true  in  any  legal  sense,  that  the  parties 
to  this  controverted  election  are  the  returned  member  and  mvself,  no 
others  having  an  interest  in  it,  I  proceed  to  consider  the  exceptions, 
begging  again  that  it  be  remembered  that  I  apply  and  argue  from  them 
solely  by  analogy. 

Some  of  them  are  regarded  by  Greenleaf  rather  as  original  evidence, 
though  usually  treated  as  hearsay.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  distin- 
guish between  them. 

Iq  actions  for  malicious  prosecution,  and  in  cases  of  agency  and 


THE    OHIO    CON^TESTED    ELECTION.  163 

trusts,  the  information  upon  wliich  the  party  acted,  though  from  third 
persons,  is  admissible.  So,  also,  are  letters  and  conversations  of  stran- 
gers to  the  record,  where  sanity  is  the  question.  And  evidence  of  gen- 
eral reputation,  reputed  ownership,  public  rumor,  general  notoriety,  is 
considered  within  the  exceptions. — [Ibid.,  §  101.)  Expressions  of  bodily 
or  mental  feeling  are  admitted,  and  it  is  left  to  the  court  or  jury  to  de- 
termine whether  they  were  real  or  feigned.  Thus,  in  trial  for  criminal 
intercourse,  the  correspondence  and  conversations  of  the  husband  and 
wife  with  third  persons  are  received.  So,  also,  are  representations  by  a 
sick  person,  of  the  nature,  symptoms  and  effects  of  his  malady. — (Ibid., 
§  102.)  And  not  only  is  general  repute  in  a  family  receivable  in  all 
questions  of  pedigree,  including,  also,  birth,  marriage  and  death,  but 
the  declarations  of  a  single  member  of  the  family  are  admitted ;  and 
more  than  this,  even  hearsay/  upon  hearsay.  Thus  the  declarations  of  a 
deceased  lady,  as  to  the  declarations  made  to  her  by  her  husband,  were 
received  in  Doe  vs.  Randall,  2  M.  &  P.,  20  ;  and  see  also  2  Russ.  & 
My.,  165  ;  Bull.  N.  P.,  295;   1  Pet.  Rep.,  328,  337. 

Inscriptions  upon  rings,  family  portraits,  tomb-stones,  and  other  fune- 
real monuments,  and  charts  of  pedigree,  are  also  admitted,  and  some  of 
them  provable  even  by  copies ;  courts  acting  here  upon  the  common 
sense  principle,  that  when  a  fact  cannot  be  proved  in  one  way,  it  7nay 
be  proved  in  another. — (Ibid.,  §  105.) 

Again  :  entries,  in  many  cases,  made  by  third  persons  are  evidence 
of  the  facts  set  down  in  the  entry ;  and  this,  whether  made  in  the 
course  of  official  or  professional  employment,  or  as  mere  private  memo- 
randa. And  Greenleaf  lays  it  down  broadly  that,  "  generally  contem- 
poraneous entries  made  by  third  persons  in  their  own  books,  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  business,  the  matter  being  within  the  peculiar  knowl- 
edge of  the  party  making  the  entry,  and  there  being  no  apparent  or 
particular  motive  to  pervert  the  fact,  are  received  as  original  evidence," 
and  this  though  the  party  be  living  and  present  as  a  witness,  and  not 
himself  remembering  the  fact. — (Ibid.,  §  116.) 

Again :  in  matters  of  public  interest,  though  confined  to  a  particular 
district,  parish,  or  neighborhood,  the  declarations  of  persons  not  parties 
to  the  suit  are  receivable  in  evidence,  upon  the  principle  that  they  "  are 
the  natural  effusions  of  a  party  who  must  know  the  'truth,  and  who 
speaks  upon  an  occasion  when  his  mind  stands  in  an  even  position, 
without  any  temptation  to  exceed  or  fall  short  of  the  truth." — Lord 
Eldon,  13  Vesey,  514.) 

In  questions  of  boundary,  therefore,  hearsay  is  admitted.  The  lan- 
guage of  Chief  Justice  Henderson,  of  North  Carolina,  in  Sasscr  vs. 
Herring,  (3  Dever.  Law  Rep.,  340,)  is  strong  and  pertinent  here  :  "  We 
have,  in  questions  of  boundary,  given  to  the  single  declaration  of  a  de- 


164  y ALL AXDIG Haul's    SPEECHES. 

ceased  individual,  as  to  a  line  or  corner,  the  weight  of  common  reputa- 
tion, and  permitted  such  declaratioris  to  be  proven,  under  the  rule  that, 
in  questions  of  boundary,  hearsay  is  evidence.  ******* 
From  necessity,  we  have  in  this  instance  sacrificed  the  principles  upon 
which  the  rules  of  evidence  are  founded."  The  same  doctrine  is  held 
in  New  Uampshirc,  Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  South  Carolina,  Ken- 
tucky, and  Tennessee. — (1  Greenl.  Ev.,  §  145,  note  1.) 

A  very  large  class  of  exceptions  is  included  under  the  head  of  declara- 
tions against  interest,  made  by  strangers  to  the  litigation.  They  are  ad- 
mitted when  it  is  shown  that  the  declarant  is  dead,  and  therefore  cannot 
speak ;  that  he  possessed  a  competent  knowledge  of  the  facts,  and  that 
the  declarations  were  at  variance  with  his  interest.  "  When  these  cir- 
cumstances concur,"  says  Greenleaf  (§  147),  "the  evidence  is  received, 
leaving  its  weight  and  value  to  be  detennined  by  other  considerations," 
This  exception  extends  to  declarations  of  any  kind,  whether  oral  or  in 
writing  (Ibid.,  §150) ;  it  includes  within  it  other  statements,  made  at 
the  same  time,  though  not  against  interest,  (§  1 52  ;)  it  is  not  necessary 
that  the  declarant,  if  hving,  should  have  been  competent  (or  compella- 
ble) to  testify  to  the  facts,  since  it  is  regarded  as  a  confession,  §  15.3  ;  it 
extends  in  favor  of  the  successor,  or  party  in  the  same  interest,  of  a  de- 
ceased rector  or  vicar,  or  corporation  aggregate,  (§  155  ;)  and  it  is  not 
necessary  that  the  fact  should  have  been  stated  on  the  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  declarant,  nor  is  it  material  whether  it  is  provable  by  other 
testimony,  (§  153.) 

Dying  declarations  also  are  receivable  ;  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion 
being  deemed  to  stand  in  the  place  of  an  oath  and  cross-examination. 

Again  :  where  other  proof  is  made  that  a  voter  cast  his  ballot  for  a 
particular  candidate,  there  is  another  technical  but  well  settled  rule 
under  which  his  declarations  are  receivable  as  against  that  candidate. 
The  oflBce,  in  the  point  of  view  in  which  I  am  now  treating  it,  being 
one  of  profit  as  well  as  trust  in  a  legal  sense,  is  an  individual  right ;  it 
is,  in  some  sense,  individual  property,  but  a  right  or  property  derived 
from  those  who  voted  at  the  election.  The  returned  member  claims 
under  each  and  every  one  who  voted  for  him  ;  and  the  contestant,  in 
Hke  manner,  under  those  who  voted  for  him.  Hence  the  declarations 
of  every  voter  are  admissible  against  the  party  for  Avhom  he  voted,  since 
the  right  of  the  party  to  the  office  depends  upon  the  right  of  the  voter 
to  confer  it.— (3  John.  R.,  449  ;  1  Greenl.  Ev.,  §  180.) 

There  is  yet  another  class  of  declarations — those  made  by  bankrupts 
— which  are  admitted  in  favor  of  the  assignees  against  creditors.  A 
strong  case  is  Ridley  et  al.  vs.  Gyde,  (9  Bing.  Rep.,  349,)  where  declara- 
tions made  by  White,  the  bankrupt,  not  a  party  to  the  record  or  in  in- 
terest, a  month  after  the  act  of  bankruptcy,  and  without  any  inten-ening 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED    ELECTIOlf.  165 

circumstances  to  connect  them  with  it,  were  yet  received  by  the  English 
common  pleas  in  1832,  Chief  Justice  Tindal,  Park,  and  Bosanquet  con- 
curring. The  chief  justice  said:  "To  shut  out  this  conversation,  would 
be  to  shut  out  the  best  evidence  in  the  cause  ;"  and  Park,  J.  adhered  to 
his  decision  in  Bawson  vs.  Haigh",  (2  Bing.,  104,)  where  he  had  said: 
"  I  am  satisfied  that  declarations  made  during  departure  and  absence 
are  admissible  in  evidence  to  show  the  motive  of  the  departure.  It  is 
unpossible  to  tie  down  to  time  the  rule  as  to  declarations ;  we  must 
judge  from  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case." — (And  see  1  Bing.,  585 
1  Index  to  Eng.  C.  L.  Reports,  "  Evidence.") 

So,  also,  in  settlement  cases,  declarations  by  parishioners  as  to  mat- 
tei's  of  residence  are  held  admissible  in  evidence,  and  that,  too,  without 
calling  the  party,  though  within  the  reach  of  process. — (1  M.  and  S., 
637  ;  and  see  especially  the  King  vs.  Inhabifant's  of  Hardwick,  11  East 
Ptep.,  588.) 

Other  examples,  many  in  number,  might  be  added ;  but  enough  have 
been  summed  up  to  show  how  often  and  in  what  a  variety  of  cases 
courts,  even  of  common  law,  have  set  aside  the  rule  excluding  hearsay. 

It  was  to  establish  this  proposition,  and  not  because  they  are  direct 
precedents  or  cases  in  point,  for  of  such  there  are  none  in  "  the  books," 
that  I  have  cited  these  examples,  reasoning  from  them  by  analogy. 

But  the  conditions  of  the  exception,  admitting  declarations  by  third 
persons  against  their  interest,  do,  in  the  reasoning  upon  which  they  are 
founded,* clearly  include  the  testimony  objected  to  in  this  case. 

1.  The  declarant  must  have  competent  knowledge  of  the  facts,  other- 
wise he  has  no  right  to  speak.  This  condition  is  fulfilled  here.  2.  He 
must  be  dead.  Why  ?  Because,  if  alive,  he  ought  to  speak.  But  in 
this  case  he  has  a  constitutional  right  to  be  silent,  and  carmot  be  com- 
pelled to  speak,  either,  first,  as  to  his  vote,  since  it  is  by  ballot ;  or  sec- 
ond, as  to  his  qualifications,  since  he  might  subject  himself  to  a  criminal 
prosecution.  3.  The  declarations  must  have  been  at  variance  with  his 
interest.  Now,  it  is  true  that  in  courts,  by  analogy  to  the  now  gener- 
ally exploded  rule  disqualifying  a  witness  because  of  interest  in  the  suit, 
the  interest  in  cases  within  this  exception  must  usually  be  pecuniary, 
although  Greenleaf  seems  to  recognize  also  that  danger  of  punishment 
may  be  a  fitting  element  in  it. — (§  150,  note  ;  and  see  24  E.  C.  L.  Rep., 
467.)  But  upon  what  principle  of  human  nature  is  this  condition  of 
the  rule  founded  ?  That  all  men  are  eager  to  increase  and  slow  to  dimin- 
ish their  estate.  And  yet  how  much  more  eager  are  they  to  retain  their 
political  rights  and  personal  liberty.  Now,  in  the  testimony,  here  are 
two  classes  of  declarations:  first,  as  to  the  qualifications;  second,  as  to 
the  person  for  whom  the  declarant  voted.  The  latter  are  not  within 
the  rule  unless  made  at  the  same  time  as  the  former.     The  former  are 


166  VALLA^•DIQHAM'S    SPEECHES. 

within  it;  and  tliis  fi)r  two  reiisoiis :  1.  Whether  made  before  or  after 
the  election,  they  equally  are  admissible  against  him  in  a  criminal  pros- 
ecution for  illegal  voting,  which  in  Ohio,  is  a  penitentiary  otTence.  2. 
If  before  the  election,  they  also  subject  the  declarant  to  danger  of  loss 
of  his  vote,  since,  by  statute  in  Ohio,  witnesses  may  be  examined  at  the 
polls,  and  thus  the  declaration  of  the  "party  be  there  given  in  evidence 
against  his  right  to  vote. 

Here,  then,  is  the  highest  interest  of  the  voter  against  the  declaration 
— loss  of  liberty,  infamous  punishment,  loss  of  suffrage.  Shall  one  pen- 
nywoilh  of  pecuniary  interest  suffice  to  render  the  declaration  admissi- 
ble ;  and  yet  these  momentous  considerations,  involving  the  most 
valuable  rights  of  the  citizen,  be  reckoned  but  as  the  small  dust  of  the 
balance  ? 

But  whether  within  the  special  conditions  of  the  exception  or  not, 
these  declarations,  both  as  to  qualifications  and  vote,  but  particularly 
the  former,  are  emphatically  within  the  broad  principle  upon  which  the 
exception  itself  is  founded.  What  is  it?  "  The  extreme  improhabiify 
of  their  falsehood.''^ — (1  Greenleaf  Ev.,  §  148.)  And  this  improbability, 
says  the  author,  is  strengthened  by  the  circumstance  that  "  it  is  always 
competent  for  the  party  against  whom  such  declarations  are  adduced  to 
point  out  any  sinister  motive  fur  making  them."  "  It  is  true,"  he  adds, 
"  that  the  ordinary  and  highest  tests  of  the  fidelity,  accuracy  and  com- 
pleteness of  judicial  evidence  are  here  wanting ;  but  their  place  is  in 
some  measure  supplied  by  the  circumstances  of  the  declarant ;  ^^id  the 
inconveniencies  resulting  from  the  exclusion  of  the  evidence  having  such 
guaranties  for  its  accuracy  in  fact,  and  for  its  freedem  from  fraud,  are 
deemed  much  greater,  in  general,  than  any  which  would  probably  be 
experienced  from  its  admission."  For  similar  reasons,  doubtless,  it  was 
that  in  Powell  vs.  Harter,  (24  E.  C.  L.  Rep.,  467,)  an  action  for  libel 
upon  a  charge  of  receiving  stolen  goods,  knowing  them,  to  have  been 
stolen,  upon  justification  pleaded,  the  court  allowed  the  declarations  of 
the  alleged  thief  to  be  given  in  evidence  by  the  defendant  to  prove  that 
he  (the  thief)  had  stolen  the  goods  received  by  the  plaintifi".  And  see 
also  Doe  <£•  Davy  vs.  Haddon,  (3  Doug.  Rep.,  310.) 

There  is  yet  another  principle  recognized  by  thd  common. law,  upon 
which  the  declarations  here  objected  to  are  admissible — necessity.  On 
this  principle,  in  part,  some  of  the  hearsay  which  I  have  already  con- 
sidered, is  admitted  to  prevent  a  failure  of  justice.  In  like  manner  the 
testimony  of  the  wife  in  proceedings  to  keep  the  peace,  or  for  assault 
and  battery  upon  herself,  instituted  by  her  again.st  the  husband,  is  re- 
ceived, and  thus  one  of  the  earliest,  firmest,  and  most  sacred  rules  of 
evidence — a  rule  not  even  yet  swept  away  by  the  relentless  hand  of  mod- 
ern reform — is  so  far  relaxed.     So,  also,  the  contents  of  a  trunk  lost  by  a 


THE    OHIO    COISTTESTED   ELECTION.  167 

common  canier  may  be  proved  by  the  owner:. — (1  Greenleaf  Rep.,  2Y.) 
And  ill  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  the  wife  of  the  owner  is  received  as  a 
competent  witness  for  that  purpose. — (20  Ohio  Rep.,  318  ;  8  Serg.  & 
Watts,  3G9  ;  3  Barr,  351.)  In  many. other  cases,  also,  upon  this  princi- 
ple of  necessity,  persons  excluded  by  the  general  rules  of  evidence  are 
yet  admitted  to  testify. 

Apply  the  principle  here,  and,  first,  as  to  declarations  concerning  dis- 
qualifications. 

.Upon  this  point  it  is  enough  to  say  that,  besides  the  difficulty,  suffi- 
ciently great  just  after  an  election,  and  increasing  continually  the  longer 
the  delay  in  taking  the  testimony,  of  securing  the  attendance  of  voters 
challenged  as  illegal,  none  of  them  of  any  class  can  be  compelled  to 
testify,  even  if  present  and  on  oath,  as  to  their  disqualification,  because 
they  might  thereby  criminate  themselves.  This  protection  extends  to 
every  question  the  answer  to  Avhich  might  tend  to  convict  them  of 
having  voted  illegally. 

To  exclude  the  declarations  of  voters  in  any  case  would,  therefore, 
tend  greatly  to  embarrass  the  rights  of  both  parties  and  of  all  con- 
cerned. 

2.  This  necessity  applies  with  especial  force  to  the  declarations  of  the 
voter  as  to  the  person  for  whom  he  voted ;  because  that  is  a  fact  which 
he  cannot  be  compelled  .to  disclose  where  the  election  is  by  ballot. 
This  has  been  repeatedly  decided.  I  refer  especially  to  Easton  vs.  Scott, 
1816,  Cont.  Elects.,  272,  276;  the  Broad  Seal  case,  1840;  Farlee  vs. 
Runk,  1845-46  ;  Monroe  vs.  Jackson,  1847-48  ;  and  the  case  of  ^.  H. 
Kneas,  district  attorney,  whose  election  was  contested  in  1851,  on  behalf 
of  William  B.  Reed,  in  one  of  the  judicial  courts  of  Philadelphia. 

This,  then,  is  a  constitutional  right  of  the  voter ;  but  there  is  also  an- 
other high  constitutional  right,  pertaining  not  to  one  man  only,  but  to 
thousands — the  right  to  see  that  the  purity  and  integrity  of  the  elective 
franchise  shall  be  presei-ved  by  a  contest  before  the  appropriate  tribunal. 
It  is  a  private  right ;  it  is  much  more  a  public  right.  And  of  what 
value  is  the  vote  by  ballot,  if  the  purity  of  the  ballot-box  be  not  made 
sure  ? 

How,  then,  shall  these  two  conflicting  rights  both  be  maintained  ? 
Only  by  permitting  the  voter  to  withhold  his  own  testimony,  and  allow- 
ing the  fact  in  dispute  to  be  established  by  other  proof. 

It  has,  indeed,  been  doubted  whether  the  constitutional  right  of  secret 
ballot  be  not  infringed  by  admitting  a/iy  testi7nony  to  prove  the  fact.  So 
it  would  seem  to  have  been  held  by  the  Committee  of  Elections,  in 
Easton  vs.  Scott ;  but  the  House,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Webster,  and  after 
a  long  debate,  in  which  the  contrary  doctrine  appears  to  have  been  main- 
tained by  Randolph,  Webster  and  Calhoun,  recommitted  the  report, 


168  V ALL ANDIGH Ail's    SPEECHES. 

with  instructions  to  consider  the  testimony  presented  by  the  parties 
upon  that  point.     And  see  Otero  vs.  Gallegos,  ut  supra. 

The  same  objection  was  urged  also  in  the  Philadelphia  contested  elec- 
tion of  1851,  just  cited  ;  and,  in  deciding  it,  Judge  Iving  said  :  "  \Maat 
is  the  object  here  ?  It  is  huportaut  to  prove  how  a  given  individual 
voted.  How  is  it  to  be  proved  ?  First,  undoubtedly,  if  he  chooses  to 
waive  the  protection  given  by  the  constitution  he  may  state  it  himselt 
But  supposing  it  became  of  \\xa\  importance  to  prove  how  he  voted, 
cannot  that  be  established  by  clear  and  satisfactory  testimony  ?  He  rnay 
have  an  interest  in  protecting  his  ballot ;  another  may  have  an  interest 
in  showing  what  that  ballot  was.  We  are  to  presene  liis  rights  by  pro- 
tecting him  in  the  secrecy  the  law  contemplates ;  but  we  are  equally 
bound  to  serve  the  general  community,  or  the  individual,  by  enabling 
him  to  prove  it.  Where  we  resort  to  other  testimony  than  the  party 
himself,  we  go  upon  the  principle  of  obtaining  the  best  testimony  the  na- 
ture of  the  case  will  admit.  ***** 
In  adopting  this  course,  I  don't  understand  myself  as  infringing  upon  the 
right  of  the  citizen  or  the  security  of  the  secret  ballot." — [Report,  p.  17.) 

It  has  always  been  conceded,  however,  that  the  voter  may  waive  his 
right  and  give  evidence;  but  surely, .if  his  own  voluntary  testimony  can 
be  received  because  it  is  a  waiver  of  his  right,  the  next  best  and  least  ob- 
jectionable testimony,  and  upon  the  same  principle,  is  his  declarations. 
And  I  here  remark,  also,  that  if,  as  is  claimed,  all  evidence  except  his 
own,  which  cannot  be  compelled,  is  secondary,  then,  as  there  are  no  de- 
grees in  secondary  evidence,  why,  I  ask,  may  not  his  declarations  be 
received  ? 

And  at  this  point  I  quote  also  from  the  opinion  of  the  court  in  the 
case  of  Lewis  C.  Cassidt,  district  attorney,  whose  election  was  contested 
in  Philadelphia,  in  1857.  Objection  was  made  to  certain  evidence  upon 
the  ground  that  it  "  amounted  to  nothing  more  than  hearsav,"  and  that 
"  to  admit  the  evidence  of  the  witness  would  tend  to  allow  him  to  prove 
admissions  of  parties  who  might  have  been  legal  voters,  yet  subsequent  to 
the  election  misrht  have  declared,  from  motives  better  known  to  them- 
selves,  that  they  did  not  vote  at  all,  or  were  not  qualified  voters.' 
JtTDGE  Thompson",  overruling  the  objection,  said,  "  that  the  question  was 
very  simple— that  to  comply  with  the  notions  of  counsel  would  be  to 
requhe  of  the  contestants  an  absolute  impossibility.  It  is  alleged  by  the 
contestants  that  fraudulent  votes  were  polled  ;  and  it  is  contended  that 
the  fact  can  be  shown  in  no  other  way  than  by  pro\-ing  it  by  the  persons 
themselves  who  perpetrated  the  fraud.  Now,  to  compel  them  to  prove 
this  by  them  would  effectually  put  a  stop  to  the  investigation.  But  the 
law  doe?  no  such  thing." — (Report,  p.  33.) 

If  it  be  said  that  the  voter  ought  himself  to  be  first  summoned,  so 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED    ELECTION.  169 

that  it  may  be  seen  whether  he  will  not  waive  his  pri\Tlege  to  be  silent, 
I  answer,  that  wherever  a  witness  cannot  be  compelled  to  testifj^  the 
party  is  under  no  obligation  to  call  him.  It  was  expressly  so  decided 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  Reyhurn^s  case  ;  6  Peters, 
Rep.,  352,  367.  Judge  Thompson,  delivering  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
the  court,  said  :  "  A  subpoena  to  compel  attendance  as  a  witness  would 
have  availed  nothing,  and  the  law  does  not  require  the  performance  of 
an  act  perfectly  nugatory.  But  suppose  Chase  (the  witness)  had  been 
within  reach  of  a  subpoena,  and  had  actually  attended  the  com-t,  he 
could  not  have  been  compelled  to  produce  the  commission,  and  thereby 
furnish  evidence  against  himself" 

The  same  docti'ine  prevails  in  settlement  cases  also,  where  it  is  held 
"not  necessary  first  to  call  the  inhabitant  (of  the  parish)  and  show 
that  he  refused  to  be  examined,  in  order  to  admit  his  declarations ;"  1 
M.  &  S.,  637  ;  10  East.,  395;  Greenl.  Ev.,  §  153,  175. 

So  far  I  have  argued  this  case  as  I  would  have  argued  had  it  arisen 
for  the  first  time  in  the  course  of  ordinary  litigation  in  a  court  of  com- 
mon law,  the  only  parties  to  it  being  the  returned  member  and  myself. 
Even  there,  with  great  confidence,  I  affirm  that  the  evidence  would  be 
received  as  a  new  application  merely  of  very  ancient  doctrines. 

But  I  now  submit  that  this  question  is  not  to  be  decided  upon  the 
strict  common  law  rules  of  evidence  applied  in  private  litigation ;  that 
the  real  parties  in  this  contest  are  the  j^eople,  or  certainly  the  electors 
of  the  district ;  and  that  the  parliamentary,  congressional,  and  legislative 
precedents  for  a  great  number  of  years,  are  clear  and  uniform  in  favor 
of  the  admissibility  of  this  evidence.  All  this,  however,  I  leave  upon  the 
oral  and  written  arguments  heretofore  submitted  upon  this  subject  to 
the  committee. 


SPEECH  OX  THE  OHIO  CONTESTED  ELECTION, 

In  the  House  of  Hepresentatives,  May  22,  1858. 

.Mr.  Speaker:  Unused  to  this  presence,  and  limited  by  your  rules  to 
one  hour,  I  beg,  as  a  special  indulgence  from  members  of  this  House, 
the  liberty  to  proceed  without  those  interruptions  which  custom  seems 
to  approve  in  ordinary  debate.  When  the  time  allotted  me  shall  have 
expired,  I  wUl  readily  and  with  pleasure  reply  to  such  interrogatories 
as,  in  that  same  spirit  of  courtcsv  and  candor  which  has  generally  been 
extended  to  me  here  throughout  this  investigation,  may  consistently  with 
your  mles  be  propounded  by  any  member  of  the  House. 


170  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

I  appear  in  this  forum  to-day,  Mr.  Speaker,  as  the  Representative  of 
nearly  ten  tliousand  of  the  qualified  electors  of  the  third  con<frossional 
district  of  Ohio  ;  and  not  in  my  own  right.  I  propose  to  speak  in  their 
name  and  in  their  behalf  alone;  and  trust  that,  without  suspicion  of 
aflfectation,  but  solely  for  convenience  and  to  avoid,  continual  personal 
allusion,  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  myself  in  the  third  person  and 
as  the  contestant  in  this  controversy,  and  to  speak  as  one  having  no  indi- 
vidual interest  in  it. 

Within  the  time  limited  it  is  not  possible  to  discuss,  in  a  manner  sat- 
isfactory to  any  one,  either  the  f;icts  or  the  question  involved  in  this 
controverted  election.  The  facts,  indeed,  I  do  not  propose  to  consider 
at  all.  They  have  been  found  fully  in  the  report  of  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi,  (Mr.  Lamar.)  If  any  member  of  the  House  be  not  satisfied 
with  that  finding,  it  is  his  right,  as  it  is  also  his  duty,  to  investigate  them 
for  himself;  but,  till  called  in  question,  I  shall  assume  them  precisely  as 
found  in  that  report. 

Resolved,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  confine  myself  wholly  to  those  matters 
which  appear  in  the  papers,  testimony,  and  reports  in  the  case,  and 
which  are  essential  to  its  just  decision,  and  to  avoid  all  allusion  to  what- 
ever lies  outside  of  these  limits,  and  is  not  pertinent  to  the  issue  in  the 
cause,  I  propose,  briefly,  and  imperfectly  of  course,  within  the  time  al 
lowed,  to  speak  to  two  j^oints  mainly,  which  are  presented  for  the  judg 
ment  of  the  House.  And  I  select  these  because,  upon  the 'face  of  the 
adverse  reports,  if  either  of  them  be  resolved  in  favor  of  the  contestant, 
he  is  entitled  to  the  seat  here  in  controversv. 

The  first  of  these  points  relates  to  the  admissibility  of  testimony  aflfect- 
ing  a  number  of  votes,  suflacient,  even  upon  the  showing  of  those  re- 
ports, not  only  to  tuVn  the  scale  against  the  returned  momter,  but  to 
elect  the  contestant.  I  refer  to  the  declakations  or  admissions  by  vo- 
ters as  to  their  qualifications,  and  as  to  the  candidate  for  whom  they 
voted.  Many  of  the  votes  here  controverted,  some  upon  both  sides,  de- 
pend in  whole  or  in  part  upon  testimony  of  this  character.  In  a  large 
majority  of  cases  indeed  where  it  is  ottered,  there  is  other  and  corrobo- 
rating proof.  But  twelve  votes  on  part  of  the  contestant  depend  solely 
upon  this  sort  of  testimony ;  and  of  these  nine  only  are  allowed  in  the 
report  of  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  {Mr.  Lamar)  :— which  report 
finds  also  a  majority  in  favor  of  the  contestant,  without  these  nine,  and 
upon  what  is  regarded  as  clear  and  satisfactory  proof  The  adverse  re- 
ports reject  all  these  twelve  votes,  as  also  many  others — in  all  to  the 
number  of  more  than  thirty — where  these  declarations  are  otfered 
along  with  direct  or  circumstantial  proof.  But  upon  the  face  of  these 
reports,  if  this  evidence  be  admissible,  the  contestant  is  entitled  to  the 
Bcat. 


THE    OHIO    CO]SrTESTED    ELECTION^.  171 

It  is  tlie  misfortune,  Mr.  Speaker,  of  all  American  legislative  assem- 
blies, that,  composed  almost  wholly  of  lawyers,  every  question,  even  the 
gravest  problems  of  Government  and  public  policy,  are  argued  as  upon 
special  demurrer,  and  tried  by  the  naTrow  rules  of  a  common  law  juris- 
diction. Certainly,  sir,  the  skill  and  discipline  of  the  bar  are  available 
in  every  department  of  life,  and  nowhere  more  valuable  than  in  legisla- 
tion ;  but  they  ought  to  be  here  used  as  the  discipline  and  skill  of  the 
athlete  when  transferred  to  military  warfare ;  his  strength,  and  courage, 
and  powers  of  endurance  are  all  just  as  valuable  as  in  the  cainpus\  but 
the  weapons,  the  strategy,  and  the  tactics  are  totally  changed.  A  con- 
troverted election  resembles,  indeed,  a  trial  at  law,  far  more  than  ordi- 
nary legislation  ;  nevertheless,  there  is  a  wide  difference,  as  I  shall  attempt 
by  and  by  to  establish ;  and  a  more  liberal  rule  is  to  be  adopted  in  its 
investigation.  But  the  first  and  natural  impulse  of  every  lawyer  here, 
fresh  from  the  dust  and  toil  of  forensic  courts,  is  to  test  every  question, 
especially  of  evidence,  by  the  mere  technical  rules  of  the  common-law 
jurisdiction  with  which  he  has,  every  day,  been  accustomed  to  deal.  And 
thus,  too,  a  civilian  would  in  like  manner  try  every  question  by  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Code  and  the  Pandects ;  and  the  practitioner  at  Doctors 
Commons  by  the  Gregorian  Institutes  and  the  Clementine  constitutions, 
and  finding  no  "  case  in  point,"  each  would  pronounce  judgment  accord- 
ingly. Sir,  this  is  one  of  the  "  idols  of  the  cave,"  against  which  the 
greatest  of  philosophers  has  warned  us.  No  case  like  this  ever  has  arisen, 
or  ever  can  arise,  in  a  forensic  court,  in  the  exercise  of  its  ordinary  or 
common-law  jurisdiction.  Yet  I  venture  to  affirm  that  it  would  not  be 
difficult,  in  just  such  a  case,  and  before  just  such  a  tribunal,  to  establish 
the  admissibility  of  this  evidence.  Very  true,  sir,  hearsay  evidence — 
if,  indeed,  these  declarations  could  be  regarded  as  hearsay  at  all — is  said 
not  to  be  admitted.  Certainly  this  is  the  general  rule ;  but  the  excep- 
tions are  as  numerous  as  the  variety  and  the  exigencies  of  litigation ;  and 
every  day  for  centuries  has  brought  forth  some  modification  of  the  rule, 
or  some  new  application  of  the  multiplied  exceptions ;  and  it  is  a  signif- 
icant fact,  that  one  hundred  and  seventy-eight  pages  of  the  first  volume 
of  Greenleaf  upon  Evidence  are  devoted  to  these  exceptions  alone.  It 
is  no  new  thing,  therefore,  that  hearsay  or  declarations  should  be  received 
It  is  the  every-day  practice  of  your  courts  to  receive  and  act  upon  just 
such  evidence  in  the  most  important  trials,  not  of  property  or  liberty 
only,  but  of  life  also.  In  actions  for  malicious  prosecutions ;  in  cases  of 
agency  and  trusts ;  in  criminal  conversation ;  in  questions  of  sanity,  sick- 
ness, pedigree,  birth,  marriage,  death,  boundary;  in  matters  of  public 
interest,  though  pertaining  only  to  a  district,  parish,  or  neighborhood,  it 
is  regularly  received.  Inscriptions  on  family  portraits  and  funeral  monu- 
ments ;  entries  by  third  persons ;    dying  declarations ;  declarations  by 


172  vallandigham's  speeches. 

bankrupts  ;  declarations  in  settlement  cases,  in  questions  of  residence,  or 
as  a  part  of  the  res  r/esta; ;  declarations  by  privies  in  law,  in  blood,  in 
estate ;  declarations  against  interest ;  and,  of  course,  admissions  and  con- 
fessions, are  all  equally  admissible ;  and  whole  volumes  of  reports  and 
treatises  are  filled  with  thetn. 

So,  also,  upon  the  principle  of  necessity,  evidence  otherwise  inadmis- 
sible is  received.  Thus,  besides  much  of  the  hearsay  to  which  I  have 
referred  the  testimony  of  the  wife  is,  in  certain  cases,  admitted  against 
the  husband ;  and  the  owner  of  a  trunk,  and  in  some  States  the  wife  of 
the  owner,  is  received  as  a  witness  to  prove  the  contents  in  an  action 
against  a  common  carrier.  So,  too,  in  many  other  cases,  parties  to  the 
record,  parties  in  interest,  and  others,  excluded  by  the  general  rules  of 
evidence,  are  yet  admitted  to  testify. 

Apply  the  principle  here,  and  the  declarations  of  a  voter,  both  as  to 
his  qualifications  and  his  vote,  are  clearly  admissible.  I  say  as  to  both ; 
because  the  largest  class  of  voters  challenged  in  contests  from  States 
where,  as  in  Ohio,  there. is  neither  registry  nor  property  qualification  of 
any  kind — a  class  which,  in  this  very  case,  embraces  one  half  the  whole 
number  controverted — consists  of  non-residents  of  the  State  or  county, 
sojourners  for  a  day,  or  "pipe-layers"  if  you  please,  colonized  for  the 
purposes  of  the  election,  and  who,  as  soon  as  their  mission  is  performed, 
leave  the  country  for  parts  / unknown,  or  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
ofiicer  appointed  to  take  the  testimony.  But,  more  than  all  this,  neither 
these  sojourners,  nor  any  other  voters,  whose  rights  are  called  in  question, 
even  if  forced  to  attend,  can  be  compelled  to  testify,  either  as  to  their 
votes,  since  they  are  by  ballot,  or  their  qualifications,  because  they  might 
thereby  subject  themselves  to  a  criminal  prosecution.  Both  these  exemp- 
tions are  high  constitutional  rights  in  Ohio,  which  no  tribunal  is  per- 
mitted to  disregard.  The  former,  if  not  as  ancient,  is  yet  just  as  sacred 
and  binding  as  the  latter;  since  the  very  object  of  the  secret  ballot,  that 
ungentlemanly  mode  of  election,  not  founded  certainly  in  the  highest 
notions  of  human  virtue  and  independence,  and  tending  still  less  to  foster 
and  develop  them,  is  to  enable  the  elector  to  conceal  what  he  ought 
never  to  be  ashamed  or  afraid  to  avow.  Nevertheless,  that  such  is  his 
right  has  been  repeatedly  adjudged.  Add  now  to  this  the  protection 
against  self-crimination,  by  any  compulsory  admission  or  confession,  and 
it  is  palpable  that,  without  just  such  evidence  as  is  here  offered,  there 
must,  for  the  most  part,  be  an  utter  failure  of  justice,  and  the  right  to 
purge  the  ballot-box  by  a  scrutiny  be  rendered  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 
And  I  beg  to  repeat  here  to  the  House,  what  I  stated  to  the  committee, 
that  so  far  as  the  testimony  of  the  voters  themselves  was  procured — 
and  no  small  part  of  the  evidence  in  the  case  consists  of  it — it  was 
upon    a  tacit    or  express   pledge  or   understanding,  not  binding,   cer- 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED    ELECTION.  173 

tainly,  but  volunteered,  nevertheless,  that  no  prosecutions  should  be  in- 
stituted. 

Examples  such  as  I  have  referred  to,  might  be  multiplied  without  num- 
ber, and  the  proposition  clearly  established,  that  in  every  instance  where, 
in  a  given  class  of  cases,  a  failure  of  justice  would  otherwise  probably 
occur,  courts  even  of  common  law,  both  in  England  and  America,  have 
uniformly  departed  from  the  rule — itself,  indeed  -but  an  exception — 
which  excludes  hearsay ;  and  thus  the  oath  and  cross-examination  been 
obliged  to  yield  to  other  tests  of  veracity,  where  justice  and  the  public 
interest  demand  it.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  common  law  ex- 
cludes hearsay  evidence.  It  once  excluded  all  who  had  an  interest  in 
the  suit :  it  shut  out  the  parties  to  the  record ;  and  in  other  respects  it 
was  hemmed  in  and  circumscribed.  But  one  by  one,  all  these  limita- 
tions have  been  abrogated,  and  the  wdiole  tendency  of  courts  and  legis- 
latures now  is  to  admit  all  evidence,  and  to  allow  the  court  or, jury  to 
judge  of  its  credibility  and  its  sufficiency,  in  view  of  all  the  surrounding 
circumstances  of  each  particular  case.  But  in  an  argument  submitted  to 
the  committee  and  printed  with  the  reports,  I  have  discussed  this  part 
of  the  question  at  full  length,  and  sustained  the  proposition  by  numerous 
citations  from  the  highest  authorities ;  and  to  that  argument  I  respect- 
fully refer  the  House. 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  are  the  rules,  decisions,  and  course  of  reasoning 
from  them,  upon  which,  even  in  a  court  of  common  law,  the  admissibil- 
ity of  the  declarations  here  objected  to  might  be  maintained.  But  I 
propose  to  ascend  now  to  higher  principles ;  to  a  more  liberal  tribunal 
and  more  enlarged  jurisdiction ;  to  a  forum  where  public  rights  are  in- 
vestigated, and  where  the  parties  are  the  people.  The  House,  in  respect 
to  contested  elections,  is,  as  one  of  the  earliest  writers  upon  the  subject 
has  observed,  "  as  well  a  council  of  State,  and  court  of  equity  and  dis- 
cretion, as  a  court  of  law  and  justice  ;"  and  applies,  therefore,  the  legal 
rules  of  evidence  rather  by  analogy  and  according  to  their  spirit,  than 
with  the  technical  strictness  of  the  ordinary  judicial  tribunals.  Very 
early  in  the  history  of  the  Government — in  1793 — Mr.  Smith,  of  South 
Carolina,  an  able  lawyer  and  sound  statesman,  said,  i^  a  contested  elec- 
tion, that — 

"  The  House  had  been  told  that  hearsay  testimony  was  imworthy  of 
attention,  but  he  wished  to  remind  them  that  they  were  not,  like  a  court 
of  law,  restricted  to  proceed  upon  regular  proof,  and  not  go  beyond  the 
letter  of  it ;  they  ivere  entitled  to  hear  and  weigh  every  thing  advanced,  and 
to  form  their  opinion  from  the  general  conviction  arising  upon  the  whole 
circumstances.'''' — Cont.  Elections,  80. 

And  in  a  controverted  election  tried  in  Philadelphia  in  1851,  under  a 
special  statute  of  Pennsylvania,  the  learned  judge  who  heard  the  case 


174  vallaistdigham's  speeches. 

said :  "Tliis  is  a  preat  public  inquiry  in  wlucli  the  communitv  are  most 
deeply  interested,  bearing  upon  and  affecting  rights  and  the  exercise  of 
them  that  Ue  at  the  basis  of  our  whole  Government."  *  *  *  "/^  is  not  a 
suit,  but  a  public  investigation  ;"  and  upon  that  ground,  his  colleague 
concurring,  he  set  aside  the  common-law  rule  upon  the  subject,  and  ad- 
mitted the  parties  to  the  record  to  testify.  And  this  same  distinction 
between  these  two  jurisdictions,  was  recognized  by  the  court  of  Queen's 
Bench  as  far  back  as  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne. 

Such  a  tribunal,  then,  is  not  to  be  circumscribed  by  the  narrow  tech- 
nicalities of  the  common  law.  It  has  its  own  cursus  curies,  its  practice 
and  its  precedents ;  and  where  these  are  silent,  it  ascends  up  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  human  nature  and  the  springs  of  human  conduct;  to  that  law 
which  is  "  the  collected  wisdom  of  ages,  combining  the  principles  of  ori- 
ginal justice  with  the  boundless  variety  of  human  affairs." 

And  who,  Mr.  Speaker,  are  the  parties  before  this  august  tribunal  ? 
Not  the  returned  member  and  myself.  No ;  we  are  but  the  John  Doe 
and  Richard  Roe  of  the  Record.  We  claim  only  on  demise  by  the 
people.  Every  elector  and  every  citizen,  nay,  each  inhabitant  of  the 
district,  certainly  every  voter  at  the  election  of  1856,  is  a  party.  They 
arc  the  constituency  who  are  here  demanding  representation  in  this  Hall. 
It  is  not  the  paltry  salary,  the  "  provoking  gold,"  nor  yet  the  honor,  high 
though  it  may  be,  of  a  seat  upon  this  floor,  to  one  or  the  other  of  us, 
that  gives  value  and  moment  to  this  controversy.  It  is  because  the  rights 
of  a  luindred  thousand  people  are  concerned.  We  are  but  their  agents 
and  attorneys ;  neither  of  us  is  the  only  or  real  pa'rty  in  interest ;  but 
every  voter  and  all  the  voters  at  the  election  here  controverted  are  the 
true  parties  before  your  tribunal.  And  applying  now  even  the  ordinary 
principles  of  the  common  law  to  this  testimony,  every  voluntary  admis- 
sion or  confession,  whether  as  to  qualification  or  as  to  vote,  by  any  one 
having  voted  at  that  election,  is  receivable  in  evidence.  The  proposition 
is  too  clear  for  argument. 

Upon  what  principle,  then,  is  this  testimony  to  be  rejected  ?  Because 
it  is  said  to  be  hearsay,  and  to  come  Avithout  the  sanction  of  the  oath 
and  cross-examination.  Sir,  however  valuable  or  necessary  these  tests 
may  be  in  mere  private  judicial  investigations,  if  they  were  to  be  required 
in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  neither  the  political,  social,  nor  busi- 
ness relations  of  the  world,  nor  even  individual  existence,  could  be  main- 
tained for  a  single  day.  From  the  first  breath  we  draw  in  infancy  to 
the  last  moment  of  our  lives,  we  are  dependent  for  all,  except  what  lies 
within  the  narrow  circle  of  our  own  vision  or  experience,  upon  this  self- 
same hearsay  tostiinonv.  The  whole  history  of  the  world,  from  the  ere- 
atioh  down  to  the  events  of  yesterday,  is  founded  upon  it.  Most  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  arts,  sciences,  geography,  astronomy,  is  derived  from 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED     ELECTIOIf  175 

it.  From  the  highest  and  most  momentous  transactions  of  government 
down  through  successive  gradations  to  the  most  trivial  concerns  of  indi- 
vidual life  and  conduct,  we  are  accustomed  to  act  upon  it.  Do  you  tell 
me  that  great  empires  and  States — Persia,  Greece,  Rome — rose,  flour- 
ished and  fell  hundreds  of  years  ago  ?  that  historians,  philosophers,  states- 
man, artists,  potent  monarchs,  and  famous  poets,  lived  and  died  centuries 
since  ?  How  do  you  know  it  ?  Do  you  believe  in  the  Copernican  system 
of  astronomy,  and  teach  your  child  that  the  earth  turns  upon  its  axis, 
and  revolves  round  the  sun?  How  do  you  know  that?  Do  you  tell  me 
that  many  thousand  miles  off  beyond  the  ocean  there  lies  a  vast  empire 
called  China,  with  more  than  a  hundred  millions  of  people  ?  Have  you 
seen  it  ?  Did  you  hear  it  sworn  to  ?  How  do  you  know  that  Washington 
lived,  or  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  adopted  by  the  Con- 
tinental Congress,  or  that  the  siege  of  Yorktown  occurred  ?  Has  some 
old  man  of  a  hundred  years  told  you  ?  and  did  you  stop  to  administer 
the  oath  and  subject  him  to  a  cross-examination  ?  Are  you  sure  to-day 
that  Napoleon  is  Emperor  of  France  ?  or  Victoria  Queen  of  England  ? 
Do  you  believe  that  rebellion  exists  in  India?  or  that  the  Palmerston 
Ministry  fell  the  other  day  from  power  ?  Sir,  in  all  these  things,  as  in 
that  which  pertains  to  the  world  to  come,  tve  walk  by  faith  and  not  hy 
night ;  and  to  discard  and  cast  aside  whatsoever  does  not  come  to  us 
under  the  ordinary  sanctions  of  judicial  investigation,  is  to  banish  all 
books,  to  dry  up  all  the  fountains  of  knowledge,  to  arrest  all  progress, 
to  subvert  all  civilization,  and  to  degrade  mankind,  and  each  particular 
man,  to  the  lowest  depths  of  ignorance  and  skepticism.    , 

Why,  sir,  the  very  existence  of  that  rule  of  the  common  law  which 
excludes  hearsay  is  proved  or  known  only  by  that  same  kind  of  evidence 
itself.  It  is  found  in  books  not  written  or  published  under  the  usual 
sanctions  of  forensic  courts.  It  is  traditionary — lex  non  scripta — and, 
like  a  custom,  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  its  validity  that,  in  theory  at 
least,  it  should  have  existed  from  a  time  whereof  the  memory  of  man 
runneth  not  to  the  contrary.  But  I  pursue  this  inquiry  no  further.  My 
purpose  has  been  soley  to  meet  and  repel  the  notion  that  this  testimony 
is  to  be  treated  only  with  contempt. 

I  proceed  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  what  will,  no  doubt,  be  regarded  by 
the  lawyers  of  the  House  as  of  much  more  importance — I  mean  the  par- 
liamentaiy  and  congressional  precedents  upon  this  subject.  Sir,  this  is 
no  longer  an  open  question  in  England.  It  was  settled  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago,  just  as  I  claim  it.  It  was  the  ancient  practice — it  is 
the  modern  practice.  On  a  single  shelf  in  your  library  are  twenty-six 
volumes  of  I'eports  and  treatises  on  election  cases  decided  in  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Great  Britain  during  that  long  period,  from  1699  to  1853,  pre- 
senting an  almost  unbroken  array  of  authorities  in  favor  of  the  admissi- 


176  VAIiLA]ST)IGHAM's    SPEECHES. 

bility  of  tliis  evidence.  By  resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the 
great  Grimsby  case,  in  the  former  year,  it  was  admitted ;  and  again  in 
the  Bedfordshire  case  in  I7l5,  bva  vote  of  ninetv-eicchttosixtv-six ;  and 
yet  again  in  the  Yorkshire  case  in  1735,.  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty-one  to  one  hundred  and  fifty-two,  the  petitioner  was  allowed  to 
give  evidence  of  what  a  voter  confessed  of  his  having  no  freehold,  who, 
at  the  election,  had  sworn  that  he  had.  Subsequent  to  these  decisions 
a  new  mode  of  conductincc  contested  elections  was  instituted  bv  the 
Gren\alle  act  of  1770— a  mode  continued  substantially  till  to-day.  By 
that  act,  election  committees  are  made  a  sort  of  judicial  tribunal,  acting 
under  special  oath,  and  deciding  the  case  in  secret  and  by  ballot ;  but 
before  whom  counsel,  and  oftentimes  the  ablest  lawyers  of  the  realm, 
are  heard.  Forty -nine  members  are  selected  by  lot ;  and  from  this  list, 
thus  chosen,  each  party  strikes  a  name  alternately  till  thirteen  remain. 
These  constitute  the  committee,  and  a  separate  committee  is  selected  in 
each  case.  Regular  reports,  as  in  courts  of  common  law,  have  been 
preserved  of  the  decisions  of  these  committees.  I  select  cases  from  the 
earliest,  the  middle,  and  the  latest  of  these  reports.  From  the  Worcester 
case,  decided  in  1776,  I  read  the  following: 

"  The  connsel  for  the  sitting  members  objected,  in  the  beginning  of  the  eanse,  to 
the  admission  of  evidence  to  prove  tlie  declaratiois  of  voters  that  'they  had  been 
bribed,"  [and,  therefore,  under  the  bribery  act,  forfeited  tlie  right  of  suffrage.] 

"  The  committee,  however,  admitted  such  evidence  as  against  the  voters  them- 
selves, so  as  to  annul  their  votes,  but  not  as  against  the  sitting  members  so  as  to  dis- 
qualify them." — 3  Dougl.  Elec.  Cases,  276. 

Again,  from  the  Leominster  case,  in  1796,  I  read  the  following: 

"  Francis  Weaver  was  objected  to  by  the  sitting  member  as  having  received  parish 
relief  within  the  year  (and  thus,  as  being  a^jaw/x??-,  not  qualified  to  vote) ;  and  John 
Gethin  was  caUed  to  prove  a  confession  of  Weaver  made  after  the  election,  that  his 
wife  had  been  relieved  by  the  parish.  This  was  objected  to,  as  being  subsequent  do 
tTie  election,  [it  being  thus  impliedly  conceded  that  if  made  before,  it  would  be  admis- 
Eible.]  But  the  committee  resolved,  '  that  the  declaration  of  a  voter  ivhich  tends  to 
destroy  his  vote,  is  admissible,  whether  made  befo)-e  or  after  the  election,  .unless  that 
declaration  goes  to  affect  the  voter  with  penal  consequences.'  " — 2  Peckw.  Elec. 
Cases,  296. 

But  as  will  presently  appear,  the  distinction  here  taken  by  the  com- 
mittee has  since  been  overruled. 

Again:  from  the  Ipswich  borough  case,  in  1835,  I  read  the  follow- 
ing: 

"In  this  case  (Bro^vn's  case)  the  voter  was  objected  to  by  the  petitioners,  on  the 
ground  of  bribery,  and  in  the  course  of  the  investigation,  a  question  was  put  to  the 
witness  who  came  to  prove  the  declarations  of  the  voter  as  to  his  being  bribed,  what 
was  the  purport  of  the  certain  conversations  he  had  with  the  voter  relative  to  a  bill. 
The  question  having  been  objected  to,  and  counsel  heard  on  both  sides,  the  com- 
mittee resolved,  '  that  evidence  of  declarations  of  voters  in  the  admission  of  bribery, 


irr 


THE    OHIO    C0:N'TESTED     ELECTIOIS".  177 

xahether  before,  during,  or  after  the  election,  is  admissible.'     The  vote  was  ultimately 
struck  off  the  poll.'' — Knajrii  <b  Ombl.  Election  Cases,  387,  388. 

And  the  same  decision  was  made   upon   another  vote  in  the  same 

case.     And  yd  again:  from  the  county  of  Carlow  contested  election, 

in  1837, 1  read  the  following: 

"  Mr.  Maule  objected  that  declarations  of  John  Nowlan  were  not  evidence  against 
the  sitting  member."  ******** 

Mr.  Thesiger,  [recently  elevated  to  the  Lord  High  Chancellorship  of 

England,  in  reply,  said :] 

'  In  the  Southampton  case,  it  was  held  that  evidence  may  be  given  of  the 
declaration  of  a  person  even  after  voting,  though  it  may  tend  to  affect  him  with 
penal  consequences ;  the  dividing  point  was  there  made  at  the  time  of  striking  the 
ballot.  In  the  Ripon  case,  the  voter  had  stated  to  two  persons  in  the  months 
of  June  and  July,  1832,  that  he  had  no  vote,  and  that  his  aunt  was  tenant  of  the 
house  ;  the  election  took  place  in  the  beginning  of  1833,  and  the  declarations  were 
held  admissible.  A  voter  who  has  voted  for  the  sitting  member,  is  always  consid- 
ered as  a  party,  and  it  is  on  that  ground  that  his  declarations  are  admissible.  Tlie 
question  is  always  considered  to  be  between  the  voter  and  the  party  questioning  his  vote, 
and  not  merely  between  the  sitting  member  and  the petitiwier.''  The  committee  resolved 
that  the  evidence  be  received." — I^alc.  <&  Mtzh.  Election  Cases,  p.  72. 

And  the  same  ruling  was  adopted  in  1842  in  two  cases;  in  1843  ;  in 
1848  in  two  cases;  and  finally  in  the  St.  Alban's  case  in  1851.  And 
between  the  first  of  these  decisions  in  1699,  and  the  last,  seven  years  ago, 
I  find  and  refer  to  the  following  additional  cases  also  : 

[Mr.  Vallandigham  here  read  a  list  of  the  cases.] 

Here  then,  sir,  are  thirty-six  cases  in  all,  running  through  a  period  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  presenting  thus  an  array  of  authorities 
scarce  ever  found  on  any  subject  in  any  court.  And  besides  all  these, 
in  the  treatises  upon  this  subject  by -Simeon,  Chambers,  Male,  Rogers, 
Montague  and  Neale,  Clerk,  and  Samuel  Warren — the  last  as  late  as 
1853 — this  evidence  is  recognized  by  all  as  admissible  in  every  case  of 
scrutiny  of  the  poll,  or  election  contested  because  of  illegal  votes ;  and 
one  of  the  latest  of  these  writers  expressly  says,  that  in  such  cases  "  the 
statements  of  voters  are  not  open  to  obj,ection  as  hearsay,  as  they  are 
looked  upon  then  as  parties  to  the  suit.'''' 

And  so  they  all  say,  I  find  also  the  same  doctrine — though  founded 
upon  a  very  small  part  of  the  authorities  to  which  I  have  referred,  and 
they  the  earlier — laid  down  in  a  note  by  the  learned  reporter,  in  3  Mc- 
Cord's  South  Carolina  Reports,  230,  233  : 

"The  following  heads  may  be  made  when  declarations  (or  hearsay)  may  be  given 
in  evidence,  namely  :  ******** 

"  22.  The  declarations  of  a  voter  may  be  given  in  evidence  to  set  aside  the  election  ; 
as  to  diminish  the  poll  by  taking  an  incompetent  vote  off,  or  to  prove  bribery,  &c.  ;  but 
they  are  not  admissible  on  a  charge  against  the  candidate  for  bribery,  &c.  They  are 
admitted  to  annul  votes,  but  not  to  set  aside  the  election  by  disqualifying  the  mem- 
ber on  account  of  his  bribery,"  &c. 

Finally,  sir,  it  is  recognized  and  adopted  as  sound  law — though  founded 

12 


1 78  vallandigham's  speeches. 

again  upon  but  a  small  part  of  the  authorities  I  have  cited,  and  they 
ligaln  the  earlier,  and  confined  here  to  but  a  single  class  among  those 
cases  where  it  is  admitted — in  that  standard  practical  treatise  upon  evi- 
dence by  Phillips,  with  Cowen  &  Hill's  notes,  more  weighty  and  valua- 
ble even  than  the  text.  From  the  third  volume,  page  322,  I  read  the 
following : 

I 

"  7.  Another  exception*  to  the  rule  that  hearsay  is  not  evidence,  has  been  adopted 
in  Buramary  inquiries  into  the  validity  of  elections  to  tlie  Legislature,  on  complaint 
that  votes  were  obtained  by  bribery.  Tfu  declarations  ofvoterii  may  he  received  as  evi- 
dence of  (he  bribetvj.  This  is,  however,  only  to  annul  votcf,  but  not  to  sustain  a  charge 
of  bribery  against  the  candidate,  with  a  view  to  disqualify  or  affect  him,  otherwise 
tlian  by  vacating  his  election." 

I  trust  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  this  long  series  of  adjudications  by  the 
Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  the  high  character  of  the  committees,  the 
great  men — some  of  them  of  historic  renown — who  have  composed  these 
committees,  the  yet  greater  lawyers  who  have  practised  before  them, 
and  the  high  authorities  by  w^hich  their  rulings  have  been  recognized 
are  enough,  in  the  judgment  of  the  House,  not  only  to  rescue  this  evi- 
dence from  the  contempt  with  which  it  has  sometimes  been  treated, 
but  to  establish,  beyond  all  doubt,  that  it  is  the  right  and  the  duty  of 
the  House  to  receive  and  act  upon  it. 

I  pass  now,  sir,  to  the  American  precedents ;  and  here  a  new  or  addi- 
tional application,  in  part,  of  the  rule  is,  in  some  cases,  presented.  In 
England,  as  in  several  of  the  States  of  this  Union,  elections  are  now,  as 
they  always  have  been,  viva  voce.  Proof  of  the  declarations  of  voters 
as  to  how  they  voted,  can,  in  such  cases,  rarely  become  necessary,  and 
hence  the  decisions  and  authorities  there,  of  course,  do  not  often  pre- 
sent this  application  of  the  rule.  But,  in  every  instance  where  the 
question  has  arisen,  as  in  the  Windsor  case,  in  1807,  where,  by  mistake, 
the  poll-lists  failed  to  show  for  whom  the  voter  challenged  had  voted, 
the  evidence  has  been  received  just  as  in  any  other  case.  And,  besides, 
the  nature  of  the  evidence  is  precisely  the  same.  It  is  equally  hearsay, 
if  at  all.  But  the  voters  being  parties  to  the  proceeding,  any  declarations 
or  admissions  by  them,  pertinent  to  the  issue,  are  equally  admissible  ; 
and  accordingly  the  distinction  does  not  appear  ever  to  have  been  set 
up. 

I  have  already  quoted  from  the  speech  of  Smith,  of  South  Carolina, 
in  \193,  upon  this  question.  I  refer  also,  in  brief,  to  the  cases  of  Kelly 
and  Harris,  in  1813  ;  Easton  and  Scott,  in  1816  ;  Reed  and  Cosden,  in 
1821  ;  Letcher  and  Moore,  in  1834;  in  all  of  which  this  question  was 
considered,  and  the  evidence,  with  or  without  qualification,  received  • 
and  I  find  no  case  where,  as  to  either  qualification  or  vote,  it  has  been 
wholly  rejected,  except  Newland   and  Graham,  in    1836.     But   subse- 


• 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED     ELECTION.  179 

qucnt  to  this  came  up  the  great  New  Jersey  "Broad  Seal  case"  of  1840, 
where  the  direct  question,  especially  as  to  the  vote,  was  considered,  and 
solemnly  decided  unanimously  by  the  committee.  I  read  from  the  re- 
port of  the  majority,  as  follows : 

"  Although  in  numerous  instances  the  voter  being  examined  as  a  witness,  volun- 
tarily disclosed  the  character  of  his  vote,  yet  in  many  cases  he  either  did  not  appear, 
or  appearing,  chose  to  avail  himself  of  Aw  legal  right  to  refuse  an  answer  on  that 
point.  In  such  cases  the  proof  of  general  representation  as  to  the  political  character  of 
the  voter,  and  as  to  the  party  to  which  he  belonged  at  the  time  of  the  election,  has  been 
considered  xufflciently  demonstrative  of  the  complexion  of  his  vote.  Where  no  such 
proof  was  adduced  on  either  side,  proof  of  the  declarations  of  the  voter  has  been 
received,  the  date  and  all  the  circumstances  of  such  declarations  being  considered 
as  connecting  themselves  with  the  questions  of  credibility  and  sufficiency.  In  eveiy 
instance  where  the  proofs  under  all  the  circumstances  were  not  sufficient  to  produce 
conviction,  the  vote  has  been  left  unappropriated." — Souse  Reports,  1839-'40,  No. 
541,  p.  699. 

From  the  report  of  the  minority,  page  "749,  I  read  the  following: 

"  If  an  unlawful  vote  be  cast,  how  are  we  to  ascertain  who  |pid  the  benefit  of  such 
vote  ?  It  is  obvious  that  in  many  cases  it  will  be  impracticable  to  obtain  positive 
proof  Id  some  cases  the  voter  may  be  willing  to  appear  and  disclose  the  fact  under 
oath  ;  in  other  cases  it  may  be  in  the  power  of  the  party  to  produce  a  witness  who 
can  swear  to  the  character  of  the  vote  given ;  but  in  many  more  no  evidence  of  that 
description  can  be  obtained  to  ascertain  the  fact  in  controversy.  It  seems  to  the  un- 
dersigned to  be  indispiensable  to  receive  secondary  evidence — ['  substitutionary '  they 
should  have  said,  for  it  is  not  secondary  in  a  technical  sense,  being  the  confession  or 
admission  of  a  party] — to  this  point,  such  as  the  declaration  of  the  voter,  either 
at  the  election  or  soon  after,  and  also  proof  of  his  political  character,  which,  when 
well  defined,  will  be  a  sufficient  guide  to  the  truth.  But  we  ought  to  be  very  care- 
ful not  to  receive  and  act  upon  evidence  of  an  equivocal  character,  which  may  have 
been  created  or  manufactured  for  the  occasion." 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker, was  the  solemn  and  deliberate  decision,  unanimously 
of  the  ablest  and  perhaps  the  most  partisan  election  committee  ever  ap- 
pointed— a  committee  which  agreed  in  scarce  any  thing  else — and  cer- 
tainly in  the  most  bitterly  contested  partisan  election  case  ever  brought 
into  the  Halls  of  Congress — a  committee  numbering  among  its  members 
John  Campbell  of  South  Carolina,  Truman  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Gov. 
Medill  of  Ohio,  John  M.  Botts  of  Virginia,  Governor  Thomas  of  Mary- 
land, Aaron  V.  Brown  of  Tennessee,  and  Millard  Fillmore  of  New  York. 
And  the  precedent  thus  established  by  them — I  say  established,  for  if  ever 
a  congressional  precedent  can  be  regarded  as  authority,  this  is  the  high- 
est— has  been  generally  approved  and  acquiesced  in  ever  since.  It  has 
never  been  overruled  by  either  a  committee  or  the  House  :  and  never  but 
once — in  the  last  Congress — has  a  contrary  doctrine  been  suggested 
and  that  in  a  minority  report,  and  in  a  case  where  but  one  vote  was  in- 
volved ;  where  the  question  was  not  discussed ;  where  no  authorities,  not 
one,  appear  to  have  been  examined ;  and  where  also,  as  to  that  single 
vote,  there  was  hearsay  upon  hearsay  offered  as  proof     But,  upon  the 


180  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

other  hand,  this  New  Jersey  precedent  was  distinctly  approved  by  the 
minority  in  Farlee  and  Runk  in  1846,  and  Munroe  and  Jackson  in  1848  ; 
and  in  neither  case  questioned  by  the  majority. 

I  come  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  the  second  point  which  I  proposed  to 
discuss.  Sixteen  "  mulattoes  and  persons  of  color"  are  proved  to  have 
voted  at  the  election  here  controverted.  The  report  of  the*  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  (Mr.  Lamar)  finds  that  fifteen  of  these  persons  (one  be- 
ing left  unappropriated)  voted  for  the  returned  member,  and  deducts 
them  from  his  poll.  The  separate  report  of  the  gentleman  from  Illinois, 
(Mr.  Harris,)  upon  the  ground  of  alleged  want  of  evidence  as  to  the 
others,  deducts  only  one  ;  while  the  other  adverse  report,  by  the  member 
from  North  Carolina  (Mr.  Gilmer),  silently  refuses  to  deduct  any  of 
the  sixteen.  It  ignores  the  whole  question  of  colored  voters,  assigning 
no  reason  for  the  refusal  to  deduct  them  from  the  poll  of  the  returned 
member.  But  the  argument  submitted  in  his  behalf  before  the  commit- 
tee, and  printed  \^\i  and  expressly  made  a  part  of  that  report,  places  it 
partly  upon  the  gi'ound  that  these  persons  of  color  were  qualified  electors 
of  Ohio,  and  partly  because  of  the  alleged  insufficiency  and  incompetency 
of  the  evidence.  The  proof  as  to  one  of  these  mulattoes  is  direct :  as  to 
four  others  it  consists  of  their  declarations  or  admissions ;  as  to  all  it  is 
circumstantial,  also.  The  evidence  is  summed  up  in  the  report  to  which 
I  have  first  referred,  and  is  there  shown  to  be  just  such  as  is  recognized 
by  all  the  precedents  and  authorities,  and  has  been  heretofore  received 
and  acted  on  by  committees  and  the  House.  I  shall  not  discuss  it.  If, 
after  having  duly  considered  all  the  several  facts  and  circumstances  thus 
summed  up  in  that  report,  any  member  of  the  House  can  conscientiously 
Bay  in  his  heart  that  he  is  not  satisfied  that  these  mulattoes  and  persons 
of  color  voted  for  the  retunied  member,  let  him  act  accordingly.  One 
circumstance  only  I  will  allude  to — a  fact  disclosed  in  the  testimony. 
In  the  third  ward  of  Dayton  there  was  carried  to  the  polls,  and  placed 
upon  the  table  where  the  ballots  were  being  received,  an  old  man  of 
ninety — an  imbecile,  slavering  in  idiocy,  the  wreck  of  a  once  intelligent 
and  most  respectable  citizen.  With  eyes  wandering  in  vacancy,  without 
power  of  mind,  without  power  of  limb — almost  without  power  of  speech — 
with  more  than  the  weakness  every  way  of  earliest  infancy,  he  is  not  able 
to  recognize  even  the  friends  whom  he  has  known  for  twenty  years — he 
sees  nothing,  hears  nothing,  knows  nothing.  But  he  was  one  of  the  old 
"  Liberty-Guard,"  an  original  "  Free-Soiler."  And  he  is  at  last  asked :  Don't 
you  want  to  vote  against  slavery  ?  Don't  you  want  to  vote  an  anti-slavery 
ticket  ?  A  dim  and  shadowy  recollection  of  the  past  stirs  his  brain ; 
a  glimmer  of  light  breaks  in  upon  the  silent  and  deserted  chambers  of 
his  mind.  He  answers  "  Yes  ;"  and  a  Republican  ticket,  with  the  name 
of  the  returned  member  upon  it,  ia  placed  in  his  palsied  hand,  and  the 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED     ELECTION.  181 

r.rni  moved  towards  the  judge  of  election,  who  receives  and  puts  the 
ballot  in  the  box,  exclaiming  'just  afterwards :  "  I  ought  not  to  have 
taken  that  vote."  Such,  sir,  was  the  spirit  of  the  canvass  of  1856. 
And  what  was  the  slavery  against  which  he  was  thus  asked  to  vote  ? 
The  enslavement  of  the  African  race,  which  we  of  the  North,  who  pro 
fess  the  Democratic  faith,  are  continually  charged  with  seeking  to  extend' 
And  yet,  am  I  now  to  be  told,  and  by  those,  too,  in  defence  of  whose 
just  constitutional  rights,  the  political  hfghways  of  the  North  are  this  day 
strewed  every  furlong  with  the  victims  of  fanaticism,  that  those  of  the 
African  race  who  voted  at  that  same  election  are  not  sufficiently  proved 
to  have  voted  for  the  candidate  of  the  Republican  party,  whose  professed 
mission  is  perpetual  warfare  against  those  "  twin  relics  of  barbarism, 
polygamy  and  slavery  ?" 

Were  these  raulattoes  and  persons  of  color,  qualified  electors  of  Ohio  ? 
That,  sir,  depends  upon  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  State.  I  do 
not  purpose  now  to  discuss  the  question  whether  a  State  can  confer  the 
right  of  suffrage  as  to  elections  to  this  House,  upon  any  but  citizens  of 
the  United  States.  Fourteen  years  ago,  a  committee  of  elections  unani- 
mously decided,  and  were  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  this  House  sustained 
in  it,  that  the  naturalization  laws  of  Virginia  could  not,  or  did  not,  con- 
fer that  right.  But  it  is  enough  to  know  that  Ohio  has  chosen  to  make 
citizenship  of  the  United  States  a  qualification  for  her  electors.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  constitution  of  1851,  is  :  "Every  white  male  citizen  of  the 
United  States."  Two  qualifications  are  here  prescribed — color  and  citi- 
zenship of  the  United  States.  Were  these  mulattoes  and  persons  of 
color  "  white"  within  the  meaning  of  the  constitution  ?  That,  sir,  is  a 
term  of  ancient  and  established  signification  in  constitutional  language. 
It  needs  no  gloss ;  it  has  no  synonym ;  it  admits  of  no  definition.  It 
means  white — pure  white  ;  and  not  any  shade  or  any  variety  of  shades 
between  white  and  black.  Such  it  is  in  philology  and  in  the  arts. 
White  and  black  are  the  two  extremes  between  which  there  is  a  large 
variety  of  colors.  No  artist  ever  confounds  these  terms  ;  no  man  in  or- 
dinary conversation  confounds  them.  He  may  speak  of  a  dark  blue,  or 
a  light  brown,  or  a  bright  yellow ;  but  never  of  a  dark  white,  or  a  light 
black. 

But  the  term  "  white,"  in  constitutions,  is  a  designation  of  race  rather 
than  color  ;  and  it  is  used  in  this  country  to  distinguish  primarily  between 
the  African  race  and  all  others — between  a  servile  race  and  races  which 
aje  free.  Strictly,  indeed,  it  may  refer  to  the  several  varieties  of  the 
Caucasian  race.  But  in  constitutions,  and  in  popular  language  in  the 
United  States,  it  is  a  word  of  exclusion  against  the  whole  negro  race  in 
every  degree.  Whoever  has  a  distinct  and  visible  admixture  of  the 
blood  of  that  race,  is  not  white ;  and  it  is  an  utter  confusion  of  language 


182  vallandigham's  speeches. 

to  call  him  white.  Sir,  it  is  a  question  of  vision,  of  autopsy  •  it  is  to  be 
resolved  upon  actual  view  and  by  perswial  inspection  rather  than  by 
pedigree.  And  the  Almighty  has  marked  the  distinguishing  character  i 
istics  of  the  race  so  strong,  he  has  furrowed  them  so  deep,  that  they  are' 
not  eradicated  in  several  generations.  The  constitution  of  North  Caro- 
lina has  fixed  the  degree  at  the  sixteenth :  and  this  corresponds  in  fact, 
with  the  rule  adopted  generally  by  courts,  North  and  South,  that  a  dis- 
tinct and  visible  admixture  of  negro  blood,  without  reference  to  the  exact 
proportions,  degrades  to  the  class  of  persons  of  color.  I  am  aware,  sir, 
that  in  Ohio  a  different  rule  was  once  deckrcd :  and  a  mere  predomi- 
nance of  white  blood  held  to  make  a  man  white.  Sir,  it  would  be  easy 
to  prove,  as  indeed  in  the  unanswerable  argument  by  the  counsel  for  the 
contestant,  it  was  proved  before  the  committee,  that  this  decision  was 
never  regarded  as  binding  authority,  even  in  Ohio :  that  it  was  absurd 
in  terms  and  contrary  to  the  whole  course  of  legislation  and  adjudication 
in  the  United  States  and  the  several  States ;  and  above  all,  that  no  court 
of  Ohio,  or  any  other  State,  can  bind  this  House  by  an  inteiprfitation  of 
•  the  tenn  "  white,"  a  word  of  ancient  and  continual  use  in  the  constitu- 
tions, laws,  and  judicial  decisions  of  nearly  every  State,  and  in  the  legis- 
lation and  executive  acts  of  the  Federal  Government,  for  a  long  series  of 
years,  down  even  to  the  last  month.  But  it  is  enough,  and  more  than 
enough  for  my  purpose,  that  since  that  decision  a  new  constitution  has 
been  adopted  in  Ohio,  prescribing  citizenshijy  of  the  United  States  as  a 
new  and  additional  qualification  for  her  electors,  and  that  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  has  decided  that  men  of  the  African  race  are 
not  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

Sir,  as  a  State-rights  man,  I  do  not  aflBrm  that  that  decision  is  abso- 
lutely conclusive  upon  this  House,  or  upon  the  Executive  outside  of  the 
ordinary  judicial  proceedings,  or  upon  the  country.  I  was  taught  to 
deny  that  the  Supreme  Court  is  the  final  and  absolute  interpreter  of  the 
Constitution.  Neverthelciss,  that  tribunal,  and  the  judges  who  compose 
it,  arc  entitled  to  the  highest  respect ;  and  their  decisions  upon  any  sub- 
ject arc  very  persuasive  evidence  of  what  the  Constitution  means,  and 
what  the  law  of  the  land  is,  in  any  court,  and  before  every  department 
of  the  Government.  .  And  in  this  particular  case,  so  far,  at  least,  as  the 
question  now  before  the  House  is  involved,  they  have  but  affirmed  the 
almost  universal  understanding  of  every  one — lawyer,  judge,  statesman, 
and  layman — from  the  beginning  of  the  Government.  In  the  constitu- 
tions and  legislation  of  the  States  ;  in  the  judicial  decisions  and  execuj 
five  ficts  of  the  States ;  and  in  the  legislation  and  executive  acts  of  thp 
Federal  Government,  the  African  has,  from  the  first,  been  treated  and 
dealt  with,  every  way,  as  an  inferior,  degraded,  and  outcast  race.  No 
man  dreamed  that  he  had  part  or  lot  in  the  Government ;  and  that,  too, 


THE    OHIO    CONTESTED    ELECTION.  183 

even  where  there  were  no  words  of  direct  exclusion.  Sir,  fifty  years 
after  this  Government  was  organized,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania 
resolved  that  persons  of  color  were  not  qualified  electors  of  that  Com- 
monwealth, although  her  constitution  did  not,  in  express  terms,  confine 
the  right  of  suftrao[e  to  those  who  were  white.  And  about  the  same 
time,  Connecticut,  through  her  highest  tribunal,  anticipated  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  by  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

But  I  will  not  re-argue  the  case.  It  stands  to-day  the  law  of  the 
land ;  and,  so  far  at  least  as  the  question  now  before  the  House  is  con- 
cerned, it  enunciates  the  sentiment  of  a  vast  majority  of  the  people  of 
this  country. 

But  it  has  been  said  that  the  judgment  of  the  Supreme  Court  denying 
citizenship  to  Africans  and  their  descendants  is  not  applicable  here,  be- 
cause those  of  that  race  who  voted  at  the  election  were  nearer  white  than 
black,  and  therefore  not  within  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 

To  this  I  might  well  answer  that  there  is  no  proof,  except  as  to  one, 
of  the  shade  of  color  or  proportion  of  blood ;  that  they  are  all  described 
by  every  witness  as  "  mulattoes  and  persons  of  color  " — men  "  of  mixed 
negro  blood,"  with  a  "  distinct  and  visible  admixture  of  negro  blood," 
and  so  admitted  to  be  by  the  judges  of  election  ;  and  that,  if  there  be 
any  such  distinction  or  exception,  the  testimony  must  show  affirmatively 
that  they  are  within  it.  But  I  take  broader  gi'ound.  I  deny  that  any 
such  absurd  distinction  is  recognized,  or  even  intimated,  in  the  letter  or 
the  spirit  of  the  decision.  In  the  judgment  of  the  court,  and  in  the 
several  opinions  of  the  judges,  McLean  and  Curtis  included.,  the  whole 
race  is  spoken  of  interchangeably  throughout,  and  described  as  "  negroes," 
"mulattoes,"  "persons  of  color,"  "Africans  and  their  descendants" — 
men  "  of  African  descent,"  without  once,  anywhere,  in  any  one  single 
line  or  syllable,  so  much  as  an  allusion  to  any  such  distinction.  The 
entire  race  ia  continually  put  in  contrast  with  the  white  race  named  in 
the  Articles  of  Confederation,  in  the  naturalization  laws,  in  the  consti- 
.  tution  and  laws  of  nearly  all  ■  the  States  of  the  Union.  The  court  fol- 
lowed but  the  legislation,  the  jurisprudence,  and  the  common  under- 
standing of  the  whole  country.  Sir,  when  Massachusetts — I  mean 
antediluvdan  Massachusetts — Massachusetts  in  the  egg — in  1705  enacted 
a  law  "  for  the  better  preventing  of  a  spurious  and  mixed  issue,"  provi- 
ding, among  other  things,  that  if  any  "  negro  or  mulatto  should  presume 
to  smite  or  strike  any  person  of  the  English  or  other  Christian  nations," 
such  presuming  African  should  be  "  severely,whipped  "  at  the  div?cretion 
of  the  justice  before  whom  convicted,  did  it  ever  occur  to  any  of  the 
Dogberrys  of  that  age  that  the  spurious  and  mixed  quadroon  and  mus- 
tee,  Ethiopian  visibly  all  over,  was  yet  not  included  in  the  act  because 
nearer  white  than  black  ?     No,  sir ;  that  refinement  in  constitutional 


184  vallandigham's  speeches. 

jurisprudence  was  reserved  to  their  descendants  a  hundred  years  later  in 
northern  Ohio. 

Again,  the  naturalization  laws  of  tlic  United  States  provide  only  for 
the  admission  of  white  aliens  to  citizenship.  May  your  courts,  I  ask 
now,  under  those  laws  naturalize  the  quadroons,  and  mustees,  the  bright 
mulattocs  of  Hayti  ?  Sir,  some  of  you  "  Americans "  think  it  quite 
enough  to  naturalize  the  Irish  and  German  emigrants  who  land  upon 
our  shores  ;  and  are  you  prepared  now  to  extend  the  rights  of  American 
citizenship,  by  a  liberal  interpretation  of  the  word  "white,"  to  the  "spu- 
rious and  mixed "  subjects  of  Faustin  Solouque,  and  to  send  them  to 
fill  up  your  Territories  under  new  and  improved  emigrant  aid  societies 
in  New  England  ? 

Again,  the  several  acts  of  Congress  abolishing  the  slave-trade,  forbid 
the  traffic  in  "  negroes,  mulattoes,  and  persons  of  color."  Are  the  Rep- 
resentatives of  New  England  willing  that  the  mixed  and  spurious  col- 
ored population,  slave  or  free,  of  Brazil,  shall  be  made  the  subject  of 
the  "traffic  in  human  flesh,"  under  the  pretext  that  they  are  nearer 
white  than  black?  Would  a  Northern  judge,  or  a  Southern  judge,  or 
any  judge,  discharge  a  prisoner  indicted  under  those  acts,  upon  this 
miserable  subterfuge  ?  Again,  is  this  same  spurious  and  mongrel  popu- 
lation to  gain  admission  under  this  pretense,  from  any  quarter,  into 
those  States  of  the  Northwest,  whose  constitutions  forbid  residence  to 
persons  of  color  within  their  limits  ?  Or  do  your  Masonic  lodges,  iu 
refusing  membership  to  men  of  the  African-  race  in  that  ancient  and 
accepted  brotherhood,  recognize  a  distinction  or  exception  in  favor  of 
those  of  that  race  who  are  "  more  than  half  white  ? "  Then  why,  I  ask, 
shall  it  be  set  up  or  tolerated  only  at  the  ballot-box,  that  peculiar  insti- 
tution of  the  FREE  WHITE  MEN  of  tliis  country  ?  Sir,  even  Ohio  has 
begun  to  retrace  her  policy ;  she  has  changed  her  constitution,  and  two 
years  ago  passed  a  law  defining  the  term  "  persons  of  color "  to  mean 
those  who,  ""in  whole  or  i%  imrt^''    are  of  the  African  blood. 

Finally,  sir,  if  these  sixteen  mulattoes  and  persons  of  color  are  white 
male  citizens  of  the  United  States,  because  they  are  nearer  white  than 
black,  then  they  are  eligible  to  membership  of  this  House,  and  to  sit  upon 
this  floor  as  your  peers.  Sir,  the  time  may  yet  come  when  they  shall 
meet  you  here  at  the  threshold,  clad  in  "  the  shadowed  livery  of  the  bur- 
nished sun,"  but  without  so  much  as  the  modesty  of  "mislike  me  not 
for  my  complexion : "  without  even  the  proffer  of  the  Prince  of  Mo- 
rocco to  "  make  incision /or ^Aese  seats,  to  prove  whose  blood  is  reddest ; " 
but  with  rude  boldness  dash  in,  demanding  their  rights  in  this  Hall. 
Are  you  prepared  for  that  ?  Sir,  you  have  already  been  threatened  with 
Fred.  Douglas,  whiter  than  the  lightest  of  these  sixteen ;  and  in  his  per- 
son, in  a  little  while  longer,  you  may  have  to  meet  this  question  agaiiu 


THE    OHIO    COTSfTESTED    ELECTION.  185 

But  it  has  been  said  that  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  app  es 
only  to  those  persons  of  color  whose  ancestors  were  imported  into  thia 
country  and  sold  as  slaves ;  and  that  it  is  not  made  to  appear  atfirma- 
tively  in  the  testimony  that  these  mulattoes  and  persons  of  color  who 
voted,  were  descended  from  such  ancestry.  Very  true,  sir,  the  plea  in 
abatement  upon  which  the  issue  was  made  up  averred  that  Dred  Scott 
was  descended  of  African  ancestors  thus  imported  and  sold ;  and  the 
letter  of  the  decision,  of  course,  conforms  to  it.  But,  in  the  absence  of 
proof  to  the  contrary,  the  court  might  well  have  assumed  the  fact  as  a 
part  of  the  public  history  of  the  country  and  of  the  world,  which  needed 
not  to  be  proved.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  this  House,  in  a  matter  per- 
taining to  its  own  peculiar  jurisdiction,  and  in  the  exercise  of  its  high 
powers  as  a  part  of  this  Government,  has  a  right,  and  is  bound  to  take 
notice  of  the  great  public  facts  in  its  history.  Now,  does  not  every  man 
know,  as  a  part  of  that  history,  that  no  African  of  the  negro  race  ever 
came  to  America  by  voluntary  emigration  ?  So  said  the  Supreme  Court. 
I  quote  from  the  opinion  by  the  Chief  Justice,  page  411  : 

"  No  one  of  that  race  had  ever  migrated  to  the  United  States  voluntarily ;  aU  of 
hem  had  been  brought  here  as  articles  of  merchandise." 

And  even  since  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  none  have  ever^come 
of  their  own  accord  or  as  freemen.  England  and  France,  indeed,  have 
both  pretended  to  open  up  facilities  for  a  free  emigration  from  Africa. 
And  with  what  result  ?  At  the  bar  of  public  opinion  in  each  country — 
before  the  great  forum  of  the  world,  they  stand  condemned  as  restorers 
of  the  slave-trade  in  disguise.  The  miserable  juggle  has  been  exposed. 
On  the  11th  of  December  last.  Lord  Clarendon  said,  in  debate  on  this 
subject,  that  "  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  a  free  emigration  from  Af- 
rica, and  that  the  plan  had  utterly  and  entirely  failed."  And  the  Earl 
of  Derby,  now  Prime  Minister,  in  the  same  debate,  denounced  the 
scheme  as  identical  in  substance,  if  not  in  form,  with  the  slave-trade  it- 
self; and  in  this  sentiment  Earl  Grey  concurred.  And  later  still,  on  the 
16th  of  March  last.  Lord  Brougham  and  the  Earl  of  Malmsbury,  both 
declared  in  debate  that  it  was  impossible  to  regard  the  scheme  of  a  free 
emigration  of  negroes  in  any  other  light  than  as  an  indirect  revival  of 
the  slave-trade. 

But,  apart  from  all  this,  the  reason  of  the  rule  applies  equally  to  all 
of  the  African  race,  no  matter  how  they  may  have  come  to  our  shores. 
No  negro  emigrant  could  be  naturalized.  It  is  not  alone  his  descent 
from  slaves  in  this  country,  that  degrades  him  in  the  scale  of  social  and 
political  being.  It  is  his  color  and  his  blood.  It  is  because  he  is  the 
descendant  of  a  servile  and  degraded  race  almost  from  the  beginning  of 
time.     The  curse  of  Ham  pursues  him  in  every  age,  and  all  over  the 


186    .  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

globe.     Bayard  Taylor — no  apologist  for  slavery — speaks  but  the  testi- 
mony of  history  when  ho  writes  from  Nubia,  in  Upper  Egypt,  that — 

•'The  only  negro  features  represented  in  Egyptian  sculpture  are  those  of  slaves  and 
captives  taken  in  Ethiopian  wars  of  the  Pharaohs;  and  the  temples  and  pyra- 
mids throughout  Nubia,  as  far  as  Daref  and  Abyssinia,  all  bear  the  hieroglyphy  of 
monarchs ;  and  there  is  no  evidence  in  all  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  that  the  itegro 
race  ever  attained  a  higher  degree  of  civilization  than  is  at  present  exhibited  in  Congo 
and  Ashantee." 

Sir,  no  wise  people  will  ever  in  any  manner  encourage  the  attempt  to 
elevate  such  a  race  to  social  or  political  equality.  And  if  the  question 
of  law  were  here  doubtful,  I  might  well  demand  upon  these  high  motives 
of  public  policy,  that  the  doubt  should  be  resolved  against  the  race. 
Above  all  I  would  urge  these  great  considerations  now  and  in  future, 
against  this  same  spurious  and  mongrel  issue,  in  whose  behalf  a  relaxation 
of  the  policy  is  demanded.  Look  to  Spanish  America.  Look  at  Mexico. 
The  blood  of  the  conquerors  was  lost  in  the  veins  of  inferior  and  out- 
cast races,  and  Mexico  has  no  "  people  "  to-day.  With  no  tyrant  strong 
enough  to  bind  her  down,  and  no  yeomanry  fit  for  self-government,  she 
is  the  sport  of  faction,  and  the  prey  of  anarchy  and  bloodshed ;  and  to- 
day the  spirit  of  the  murdered  Guatemozin,  wandering  three  centuries 
through  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  gluts  itself  with  revenge. 

Sir,  it  is  this  same  spurious  and  mongrel  race  who  constitute  your 
"  free  negroes,"  North  and  South.  They  will  jiot  be  slaves,  and  they 
are  not  fit  for  freemen.  And  when  this  Government  shall  be  broken  up, 
and  the  fanaticism  of  the  age  shall  have  culminated  in  the  North  in  Red 
Republicanism  and  negro  equality,  and  the  South  shall  have  driven  out 
her  free  negroes  upon  you,  and  you  shall,  have  stolen  away  her  slaves, 
then  your  troubles  with  this  race,  which  already  has  plagued  America 
for  a  century,  will  but  have  begun.  They  are  your  petty  thieves  now  ; 
they  rob  your  larders  and  your  sheep-cotes ;  they  do  fill  up  your  peni- 
tentiaries, and  they  would  fill  up  your  hospitals  and  your  alms-houses, 
if  you  would  let  them.  Then  they  will  be  your  highwaymen;  your  ban- 
ditti ;  they  will  make  up  your  mobs.  With  just  enough  of  intelligence, 
derived  from  a  white  ancestry,  to  know,  and  enough  of  brutishness,  in- 
herited from  the  old  African  stock,  to  avenge,  in  any  form,  the  ignominy 
and  derrradation  of  four  thousand  years ;  with  fetish  ideas  of  relijiion 
and  fanatic  notions  of  politics,  they  are  the  sans  culotte,  who,  led  on  by 
the  worst  of  white  men,  will  make  your  revolutions  and  overturn  your 
governments.  Sir,  such  things  have  already  occurred  in  history.  They 
are  not  the  baseless  fabrics  of  ^  vision.  No  wonder  the  States  of  the 
Northwest  have  begun  to  erect  constitutional  barriers  stronirer  than  ever 
against  a  negro  population.  In  all  this  there  is  eminent  wisdom  and  a 
statesmanlike  foresight. 


ON   IMPEACHMENTS.  187 

But  I  have  no  time  to  pursue  this  subject  farther.  I  thank  the  House 
now  for  the  courtesy  and  attention  with  which  they  have  heard  me 
throughout,  and  regret  only  that  I  have  been  obliged  to  appear,  for  the 
fixst  time  in  this  Hall,  in  the  character  of  a  contestant. 


REMARKS  ON  IMPEACHMENTS, 
In  the  House  of  Representatives,  December  14,  1858.* 

Mr.  Speaker  : — I  do  not  rise  to  speak  upon  the  facts  of  this 
case,  nor,  indeed,  to  discuss  any  thing ;  but  rather  to  state  briefly  the  con- 
clusions at  which  I  have  arrived,  and  the  reasons  which  control  my  vote. 

I  begin  just  where  the  gentleman  from  New  York  (Mr.  C.  B.  Coch- 
rane) began.  Before  inquiry  into  the  facts  in  any  case,  it  is  essential 
first  to  comprehend  clearly  the  law  or  the  principles  to  which  they  are 
to  be  applied.  By  what  law,  then,  are  we  governed  ?  Upon  what  prin- 
ciple ought  this  House  to  proceed  in  ordering  an  impeachment  ?  In  what 
scale  shall  we  weigh,  by  what  rule  shall  we  measure,  the  facts  in  this 
case  ?  What,  sir,  is  an  impeachment  under  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  and  by  the  House  of  Representatives?  Sir,  this  case  has 
been  heard  and  argued  all  along  as  though  it  were  a  trial,  and  a  trial 
by  criminal  law,  under  a  penal  statute,  and  it  has  just  been  so  argued  by 
the  gentleman  from  New  York.  Certainly  the  mistake  is  most  natural ; 
and  the  course  pursued  by  the  committee — I  speak  it  most  deferentially — 
a  course  sustained  by  but  One  precedent,  and  that  not  in  the  United 
States — has,  in  my  judgment,  caused  all  this  embarrassment.  They  have 
heard  the  whole  case ;  have  examined  witnesses  in  full  and  at  length  on 
behalf  of  the  accused,  and  have  reported  not  only  the  whole  testimony 
before  them,  but  elaborate  arguments  in  defence  of  the  conclusions  at 
which  they  have  severally  arrived.  But  all  this  does  not  change  the 
nature  of  an  impeachment ;  nor  the  duty  of  the  House. 

And  here,  sir,  at  the  very  threshold,  it  becomes  us  to  lay  aside  old 
habits  and  associations.  "VNTioever  hears  of  an  impeachment,  thinks 
involuntarily  of  great  orators  and  great  criminals ;  of  Cicero  and  Verres, 
of  Burke  and  Hastings ;  splendid  visions  rise  up  before  him.  Every 
lawyer,  too,  turns  at  once  to  Hale's  Pleas  of  the  Crown,  or  Chitty's  Crimi- 
nal Law,  for  the  rule  and  practice  governing  impeachments.  Now,  sir, 
against  all  this,  I  maintain  that  impeachment  with  us  is  not  a  criminal 

♦These  remarks  were  made  on  the  resolation  to  impeach  Judge  Watrous,  of 
Texas. 

f 


• 


188  vallandigham's  speeches. 

proceeding  at  all.  We  arc  not  a  grand  inquest ;  we  are  not  a  grand  jnry ; 
and  all  analogies  drawn  from  them,  tend  only  to  mislead  and  confuse. 
Impeachraents  in  England  and  the  United  States  are  two  essentially  dif- 
ferent tilings.  They  differ  in  the  persons  who  may  be  impeached ;  they 
differ  in  the  object  of  the  impeachment ;  they  differ  in  the  nature  and 
jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal,  and  in  th^  punishment  that  follows  upon 
conviction.  In  England,  the  high  court  of  Parliament  is  strictly  a  crim- 
inal court,  and  a  court  of  public  and  general  jurisdiction.  It  is  so 
treated  in  all  the  books ;  and  it  is  as  much,  and  as  closely  bound  by  the 
rules  of  law  and  evidence,  as-  is  the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  All  per- 
sons— Lords  and  Commons,  officers  and  private  persons — may  alike  be 
tried  by  it ;  they  may  be  tried  for  any  offence,  and  may  be  put  under 
arrest  pending  the  trial. 

The  punishment,  is  the  same  as  upon  conviction,  in  any  other  court, 
extending  even  to  the  death  penalty ;  and  the  nature  and  the  purpose 
of  the  tribunal  is  the  punishment  or  suppression  of  crime. 

Not  so  under  our  Constitution.  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  is 
not  a  criminal  court  established  for  any  such  purpose.  It  has  no  cjiminal 
jurisdiction.  It  exercises  no  judicial  power  other  than  impeachment; 
and  even  here  its  power  is  not  strictly  judicial.  None  but  civil  officers 
are  subject  to  impeachment,  and  the  judgment — not  the  punishment, 
for  that  word  is  not  used — extends  no  further  than  removal  from  office 
and  political  disability.  The  accused  is  not  liable  to  arrest,  and  the  case 
may  proceed,  though  he  should  refuse  to  appear.  There  can  be  no  con- 
viction unless  two-thirds  of  the  Senate  concur ;  and  neither  life,  liberty, 
nor  estate  is  affected  by  it.  Though  the  offender  were  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  a  great  State  criminal,  convicted  of  treason,  hatched 
and  consummated  here  within  the  very  capital ;  yet  could  not  a  hair  of 
his  head  be  touched.  You  could  not  even  put  him  under  arrest  pend- 
ing the  trial,  and  more  than  this,  neither  conviction  nor  acquittal  by  the 
Senate  can  be  plead  in  bar  of  an  indictment  for  the  same  offence,  pend- 
ing in  a  court  of  ordinary  criminal  jurisdiction  ;  nor  can  the  judgment 
of  the  Senate  be  given  in  evidence  on  such  trial. 

These  incidents,  sir,  all  indicate  unmistakably  that  impeachment  with 
us  is  not  a  criminal  proceeding,  and  that  we  are  not  to  look  for  the  rules 
and  practice  which  govern  it  to  the  common  law  of  England,  nor  yet 
even  to  the  usages  of  Parliament,  but  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  and  our  own  practice  under  it.  By  that  instrument  it  is 
limited  and  defined ;  and  we  are  as  much  bound  to  respect  the  defini- 
tions and  limitations  as  any  other  part  of  the  Constitution. 

What,  then,  palpably,  are  the  objects  of  impeachment  under  our  Gov- 
ernment ?  I  answer,  first,  restraint  upon  public  officers ;  and  secondly, 
the  removal  of  such  as  shall  in  any  manner  misdemean.     Except,  indeed, 


ox    IMPEACHMENTS.  189 

80  far  as  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  restraint  upon  those  who  hoLi  office 
for  a  fixed  term,  it  is  of  value  only  or  chiefly  to  offices  held  for  life. 
These  are  the  judges  of  our  Federal  Courts,  and  they  are  answerable  be- 
fore no  other  tribunal;  they  are  subject  to  no  other  check;  our  Con- 
stitution has  exacted  no  other  security  for  their  good  behavior,  and  even 
this  is  not  imperative  to  its  full  extent  upon  the  Senate.  Political  disa- 
bility does  not  necessarily  follow  upon  conviction,  since  the  Senate 
may  do  no  more  than  remove  from  office.  Impeachment,  sir,  is  no  en- 
gine of  oppression  here.  There  is  no  danger  of  its  abuse.  Indeed,  the 
difficulties  which  attend  upon  its  successful  prosecution  render  it  of  little 
value  even  as  a  restraint.  Tyranny  is  always  simple  in  its  appliances, 
and  will  never  resort  to  such  cumbrous  machinery  as  impeachment. 

What,  I  inquire  next,  are  the  offences  for  which  impeachment  Ues  under 
our  Constitution  ?  Gei^emen  have  argued  as  though  some  gi-eat  crime 
must  be  charged,  in  order  to  justify  it.  Not  so ;  treason,  biibery,  and 
high  crimes,  are  indeed  enumerated ;  but  that  is  not  all.  Misdemeanors, 
also,  are  included.  Whoso  shall  misdemcan  himself  in  any  civil  office,  shall 
be  liable  to  impeachment,  and  this  is  especially  so  in  the  case  of  the 
judges  of  our  Federal  Courts.  They  hold  office  "  during  good  behavior." 
Misdemeanor  is  misbehavior.  It  is  so  in  lexicography,  and  it  is  so  in  law. 
I  read  from  Blackstone  : 

"  In  common  usage,  the  word  '  crime  '  is  made  to  denote  such  offences  as  are  of 
a  deeper  and  more  atrocious  dye ;  while  smaller  faults  and  omissions  of  less  conse- 
quence, are  comprised  under  the  gentler  name  of  misdemeanors  only." 

What,  then,  is  judicial  misbehavior  or  misdemeanor  ?  That,  sir, 
depends  wholly  upon  the  standard  which  you  shall  fix  for  judicial  char- 
acter and  conduct.  Mine,  I  confess,  is  the  highest.  I  would  have  both 
as  pure  as  the  "  fann'dsnow,  that's  bolted  by  the  northern  blasts  twice 
o'er,"  and  as  spotless  as  the  ermine  which  was  once  the  emblem  of 
judicial  purity.  The  integrity  of  the  judge  ought  to  be  above  suspicion 
in  his  great  office.  I  would  have  him  the  sanctissimus  judex  of  the 
Romans ;  for  to  the  litigant  in  his  court  he  stands  in  the  place  of 
God.  Save  impeachment,  he  is  subject  to  no  responsibility  except  an 
enlightened  conscience,  and  a  religious  sense  of  duty.  Theoretically^  • 
indeed,  the  judiciary  is  in  every  country,  to  a  great  extent,  of  necessity 
an  arbitrary  power.  Even  when  hedged  in  by  law,  there  yet  remains 
the  vast  field  of  "judicial  discretion;"  and  beyond  all  that  lies  the 
boundless  ocean  of  the  "interpretation  of  Laws" — the  great  business 
of  the  judge.  Sir,  there  are  ten  thousand  ways  in  which  a  corrupt,  a 
weak,  or  a  prejudiced  judge — a  judge  hostile  or  friendly  to  the  litigant, 
or  what  is  more  common,  the  lawyer,  may  pervert  justice,  pollute  its 
pure  fountains,  and  do  foul  wrong  in  the  cause ;  and  yet  none  but  he 


190  vallandigham's  speeches. 

who  has  suffered  know  it.  Tlicse  are  the  false  weights  which  it  is  so 
easy,  iinperceived,  to  throw  into  the  scales  of  justice.  Add  now,  to  all 
this,  that  the  judicial  power,  like  the  invisible  and  impalpable  air  which 
surrounds,  penetrates  everywhere  aud  affects  every  relation  of  life ; 
that  it  extends  oven  to  life  itself,  to  liberty,  to  property  in  all  its  infinite 
complications ;  to  marriage,  divorce,  parentage,  master  and  servant, 
and  finally  pursues  us  even  after  death  in  the  distribution  of  estates; 
nay,  that  the  very  monuments  of  the  dead,  the  dull,  cold  marble  in 
which  they  sleep,  are  the  subjects  of  its  destroying  or  protecting  hand. 

There  is  no  department  of  the  Government,  therefore,  which  is  so 
liable  to  abuse  as  the  judiciary  ;  but,  to  the  honor  of  America  and  hu- 
man nature  be  it  said,  there  is  none  where  so  little  abuse  prevails.  In 
seventy  years  this  is  the  first  example  of  the  impeachment  of  a  judge 
demanded  because  of  alleged  corruption  ii^office  for  private  gain. 
Arbitrary  and  dissolute  judges  have  indeed  been  impeached,  though 
but  in  two  or  three  instances  during  that  long  period ;  yet  none  for 
corruption.  But  if  infrequent,  it  is  nevertheless  the  most  atrocious, 
and  in  its  consequences  to  the  judiciary  and  to  the  public  the  most 
dano-erous  crime  which  a  judge  can  commit :  for  "  there  is  no  happiness, 
there  is  no  liberty,  there  is  no  enjoyment  of  life,  unless  a  man  can  say, 
when  he  rises  in  the  morning,  I  shall  be  subject  to  the  decision  of  no 
unjust  judge  to-day." 

What,  I  inquire  next,  is  the  province  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives here?  The  Constitution  defines  it.  You  have  the  sole  power  of 
impeachment.  What  is  it  to  impeach  ?  Certainly  not  to  try  ;  that  is 
the  sole  right  of  the  Senate.  To  impeach  is  .simply  to  accuse.  We 
do  not  try,  we  have  no  right  to  try,  the  question  of  the  guilt  or  the  inno- 
cence of  the  accused.  I  have  not  in  this  case  made  up  my  mind 
definitely  upon  that  point,  because  I  am  not  willing  to  usurp  the  prov- 
ince nor  anticipate  the  judgment  of  the  Senate. 

We  are  not  judges ;  we  are  not  grand  jurors ;  we  do  not  act  under 
special  oath ;  we  are  not  here  exercising  judicial  power ;  we  are  not 
acting  in  our  representative  capacity.  Our  province  is  to  accuse — to 
prosecute ;  and  when  your  Committee  shajl  appear  at  the  bar  of  the 
'Senate,  they  will  impeach  or  accuse  in  the  name  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. In  that  high  court  of  impeachment,  also,  we  sit  during  the 
trial  as  accusers.  We  are  bound,  therefore,  by  no  mere  technical  rules 
of  law  and  evidence.  We  are  under  no  obligation  other  than  that 
highest  of  obligations — a  sense  of  duty  alike  to  the  people  and  the 
accused.  Into  our  hands  the  Constitution  has  committed  the  guardian- 
s}iip — and  in  the  case  of  offices  held  for  life,  the  sole  guardianship — of 
the  ri<>-hts  of  the  many  who  do  not  hold  office  against  the  few  who  do. 
Certainly,  sir,  no  man  ought  to  be  lightly  accused  of  even  official  mis- 


•         ON    IMPEACHMENTS.  191 

'•onduct  or  abuse  of  public  trjrit.  But  where  there  is  no  other  restraint 
or  rodrcss  ;  where  the  office  is  judicial  and  for  life  ;  where  the  trust  is 
so  delicate  and  momentous  in  its  nature,  and  so  open  to  abuse ;  where 
public  opinion  usually  is  silent  and  even  the  Press  cares  not  to  speak 
out;  this  House  ought,  in  my  judgment,  to  be,  if  not  swift,  certainly 
not  slow  to  listen  to  the  complaints  of  those  who  invoke  its  process  to 
summon  the  accused  into  court.  All  other  courts  stand  open,  night 
and  day,  and  it  is  the  high  constitutional  right  of  every  citizen  to 
demand  their  process  as  of  course.  But  between  thi^  high  court  of 
impeachment,  which  alone  under  our  Constitution  holds  the  power  of 
redress  of  official  wrong  and  oppression,  stands  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. Am  I  not  right,  then,  in  saying  that  we  ought  not  too  hastily 
to  deny  the  only  process  by  which  such  oppression  and  wrong  may  be 
redressed  ?  If,  indeed,  the  case  be  palpably  frivolous,  or  the  prosecution 
plainly  malicious,  it  is  our  duty  promptly,  if  not  indignantly,  to  refuse. 
Can  any  one,  will  any  one,  say  that  this  is  such  a  case  ? 

But  it  has  been  said  that  there  is  too  much  doubt  and  perplexity  in 
this  case,  and  that,  therefore,  there  ought  to  be  no  impeachment.  Not 
so.  We  have  no  power  to  try  and  acquit ;  and  these  very  perplexities 
and  doubts,  if,  indeed,  any  such  there  are,  especially  after  the  accused 
has  been  heard  fully  in  his  defence,  are,  of  themselves,  enough  to  justify* 
this  House  in  sending  the  case  to  the  Senate  for  adjudication.  What ! 
shall  we  deny  to  Judge  Watrous's  accusers  the  only  process  by  which 
he  can  be  brought  into  court  and  put  upon  trial. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  charge  is  corruption,  and  the  accused 
a  judge.  Sir,  I,  too,  am  for  the  independence  of  the  judiciary  ;  but  I 
am  for  its  purity  first,  llowsoever  1  might  vote  upon  the  question  of 
the  life  tenure  and  mode  of  appointment  of  the  judiciary,  in  a  conven- 
tion assembled  to  frame  a  new  Constitution  for  the  United  States,  I 
am  opposed  to  any  change  of  that  instrument  in  these  respects  now. 
But  I  will  be  the  more  exact,  fifty-fold,  in  enforcing  the  only  other 
restraint  and  remedy  which  the  Constitution  has  devised.  Corruption, 
moneyed  corruption — and  we  have  heard  it  from  high  authority — is 
steadily,  though  with  noiseless  but  most  guilty  tread,  stealing  into  other 
departments  of  our  Government.  Legislation  here,  it  is  said,  has  been 
controlled  by  it ;  and  this  House  has  not  been  slow  to  appoint  com- 
mittees of  investigation  founded  upon  but  rumor  alone.  Sir,  some 
years  hence — I  dare  not  say  centuries — seats  in  this  House  may  perhaps 
be  openly  bought  and  sold.  They  have  long  been  merchandise  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  But  in  England  the  judiciary  is  pure  and  in- 
corrupt, and  England  still  survives.  For  one,  Mr.  Speaker,  wheresoever 
else  in  this  Government  corruption  may  come,  or  how  far  soever  else- 
where it  may  be^carried,  I  demand  that  there  shall  be  preserved  one 


192  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

cil;i>lol  at    l.a.st,  witliiu   wliicli  public   virtue  may  retire  and/Stand  in- 
trenched. 

These,  then,  in  my  judgment,  are  the  principles,  and  these  the  con- 
siderations, upon  wliich  the  House  ought  to  proceed  and  be  governed 
in  ordering  impeachment;  and  applying  them  now  to  the  testimony 
reported  by  the  Committee,  I  am  obliged  to  vote  for  this  impeachment.* 


REMARKS   ON   THE  TARIFF. 
In  the  House  of  Representatives^  F^ruary  24,  1859. 

Mr.  Chairman  :  I  would  very  much  prefer  to  speak  upon  the  tariff, 
when  a  bill  relating  to  that  subject  shall  be  under  consideration  ;  but  it 
is  evident  that  at  this  late  day  either  no  such  njeasurc  will  be  brought  in, 
or  if  brought  in,  then  under  such  circumstances  as  will  of  necessity  pre- 
clude debate.  I  feel  obliged,  therefore,  to  speak  to-night,  and  in  Com- 
'  mittee  of  the  Whole. 

Five  parties,  Mr.  'Chairman,  arc  interested  in  all  that  pertains  to  a 
taritl':  the  Government,  the  consumer,  the  shipper,  including  of  course 
the  importer,  the  producer  of  raw  material,  and  the  manufacturer.  The 
immediate  interest  of  these  several  classes,  except  shipper  and  consumer, 
is  diverse.  It  is  the  immediate  interest  of  the  Government — and  I  begin 
with  it  because  it  is  for  its  sake  alone  that  the  power  to  create  tariffs  is 
conferred — that  the  duties  laid  shall  yield  the  largest  amount  of  revenue  ; 
of  the  consumer  and  shipper,  that  there  should  be  no  tariff  at  all ;  of  the 
producer  of  raw  material,  that  the  highest  rate  of  duty  should  be  laid 
upon  it;  of  the  manufacturer,  that  the  raw  material  should  be  free,  and 
the  highest  rate  of  duty  laid  upon  the  article  manufactured,  which  goes 
forth  to  the  consumer.  A  similar  division,  having  reference  to  the  differ- 
ent sections  of  the  Union,  might  no  doubt  also  be  made ;  but  I  do  not 

*  "  There  is  much  force  in  the  remark,  that  an  impeachment  is  a  proceeding/w<re?y 
of  a  political  nature.  It  is  not  so  much  designed  to  pimish  an  offender,  as  Xa  secure 
the  State  an;ainst  ,(/ro.ss  official  misdemeanors." — 1  Story  on  the  Constitution,  §  803. 

"  It  [impeachment]  is  designed  as  a  method  of  national  inquest  into  the  conduct  of 
public  men.  If  such  is  tlie  design,  who  can  so  properly  be  the  inquisitors  for  the 
nation  as  the  rciirescntativcs  of  tlie  people  themselves  V  They  must  be  presumed 
to  be  watchful  of  tlie  interests,  aliiv  to  the  .t'/mpathiex,  and  read;/  to  rcdros.i  the grievance.% 
of  Uie  people.  If  it  is  made  their  duty  to  bring  official  delinquents  to  justice,  they 
can  scarcely  fail  of  performing  it  without  public  denunciation  and  political  desertion 
on  the  part  of  their  constituents." — Toid.,  §  689.  • 


REMARKS   Olf   THE   TARIFF.  193 

propose  to  consider  the  subject  directly,  in  that  particular  view,  at  this 
time. 

In  every  tariff,  the  conflicting  interests  of  these  several  classes,  to  which 
I  have  just  referred,  ought  to  be  adjusted  in  accordance  with  the  propor- 
tional importance  of  each.  The  wants  of  Government  are,  indeed,  to  be 
restricted  to  the  lowest  standard  of  rational  economy ;  and  no  more  rev- 
enue collected  than  is  sufficient  for  these  wants  at  that  standard ;  for  it 
is  not  the  business  or  right  of  this  peculiar  Federal  Government  of  ours 
to  protect  for  the  sake  of  protecting,  or  to  encourage  for  the  sake  of 
encouraging,  any  of  the  great  interests,  as  they  are  called,  of  the  country. 
To  do  that  belongs  to  the  reserved  rights  and  powers  of  the  States.  Com- 
merce, even,  is  not  an  exception.  Congress  may  "  regulate"  commerce ; 
but  to  regulate,  is  not  to  foster  it  at  the  expense  of  other  interests  not 
enumerated  in  the  Constitution.  Congress  may  "  promote  the  progress 
of  science  and  useful  arts,  by  securing  for  lijnited  times  to  authors  and 
inventors  the  exclusive  right  to  their  respective  writings  and  discoveries." 
But  even  here,  though  a  class — not,  indeed,  of  the  great  industrial  inter- 
ests, as  in  political  economy  they  are  called — is  named,  yet  the  right  to 
promote  science  and  useful  arts  is  expressly  limited  to  patents  and  copy- 
rights. Congress  may  also  "  dispose"  of  the  public  lands ;  but  it  must 
dispose  of  them  in  a  constitutional  way,  and  for  a  constitutional  pur- 
pose. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  the  sacred  duty  of  this  Government,  in  the  exercise 
of  the  high  powers  committed  to  it,  to  have  the  strictest  care  that  none 
of  these  great  interests  suffer  detriment  by  its  action ;  and,  accordingly, 
in  laying  a  tariff,  Congress  is  under  the  highest  obligation,  first,  to  limit 
the  aggregate  of  revenue  to  the  lowest  amount  consistent  with  the  neces- 
sities of  economical  government ;  becau'se  it  is  the  interest  of  shippers, 
and,  above  all,  of  the  consumers,  who  constitute  the  vast  mass  of  the  com- 
munity, that  there  should  be  no  tariff  at  all.  Second.  To  select  as  well 
the  raw  material,  when  produced  in  this  country,  as  the  manufactured 
article,  for  taxation ;  because  it  is  the  interest  of  the  producer,  also,  to 
have  the  highest  price  for  the  thing  produced.  Third.  To  select  the 
manufactured  article ;  because  otherwise  the  consumer  of  manufactures 
would  escape  his  just  projiortion  of  the  burdens  of  government;  and  in 
selecting  the  several  articles,  and  fixing  the  rate,  it  is  the  duty  of  Con- 
gress to  regard  that  fundamental  principle  of  republican  government, 
the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number ;  or,  better  yet,  the  least  evil  to 
the  greatest  number;  and  that  other  capital  rule  of  just  taxation  every- 
where and  in  every  form  :  the  least  burden  upon  those  least  able  to  bear  it. 
And  if,  sir,  we  would  but  divest  ourselves,  in  laying  duties,  of  the  notion 
that  they  are  anything  else  but  taxes,  that  the  object  is  taxation,  and  all 
tariflfs  but  tax-laws — if  we  would  call  things  by  their  right  names,  we 
13 


194  VALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECHES. 

sliould  have  less  controversy,  and  less  evil,  too,  to  the  country,  because 
of  false  notions  and  false  action  upon  this  vexed  question. 

Theoretically,  indeed,  it  may  be  maintained  that  Congress  ought,  undci: 
the  Constitution,  to  regard  the  revenue  only  in  the  selection  and  the  rate 
imposed.  But  this  is  not  now,  never  has  been,  and  never  will,  iu  practice, 
be  strictly  observed.  AVhy  are  not  coffee  and  tea  taxed  ?  Neither  is 
produced  in  the  United  States.  The  consumption  is  great,  and  the  de- 
mand and  importation,  of  course,  great  also.  They  would  yield  a  hand- 
some revenue.  But  they  are  not  taxed  because  they  are  reckoned  now 
among  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  the  burden,  therefore,  would  fall  upon 
millions  little  able  to  bear  it.  Then,  sir,  there  is  a  departure,  there  must 
be  a  departure,  the  people  Avill  have  a  departure  in  practice,  from  the 
strict  theory  of  revenue  alone.  And  such,  too,  is  the  usage  among  the 
several  States  in  enacting  tax  laws.  There  is  no  "  protection"  there  in 
taxation,  and  by  no  vote  of  mine  shall  there  be  "  protection"  here,  falsely 
so  called,  in  the  form  of  a  tariff.  But  every  wise  legislator  and  econo- 
mist consults  the  temper,  the  interests,  and  the  necessities  of  the  people 
whom  he  would  tax. 

But  it  has  been  the  natural,  perhaps,  certainly  the  common  mistake  of 
all,  and  the  universal  mistake  of  the  friends  of  what  is  called  "  protection," 
that  tariffs  are  to  be  laid  peculiarly  Svith  reference  to  the  interests,  and 
for  the  benefit,  of  the  manufacturer;  and,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Government  to  this  day,  the  debates  in  Congress,  and  books,  pamphlets, 
and  newspapers,  throughout  the  country,  have  been  filled  with  statistics 
and  arguments  founded  upon  this  assumption.  I  am  aware,  sir,  that  it  is 
argued,  also,  as  it  has  just  been  argued  by  the  gentleman  from  Pennsyl- 
vania [Mr.  Kunkel],  that  whatever  benefits  the  manufacturer  benefits 
the  whole  country ;  and  that  a  "  home  market"  is  fraught  with  number- 
less blessings  to  the  consumer.  Well,  sir,  all  this  sounds  very  fine  in 
theory ;  but,  until  it  shall  be  established  that  fostering  manufactures  tends 
necessarily  to  the  multiplication  of  the  human  species,  or  an  increase  in 
the  capacity  of  the  human  stomach,  pardon  me,  sir,  if  I  do  not  believe  it. 
Will  he  who  manufactures  iron  or  wool  eat  more  than  the  man  who  grows 
flax  or  raises  sheep  ?  Can  the  operative  of  Lynn  or  Lowell  digest  better 
than  the  operative  of  Leeds  or  ^lanchester  ?  Will  there  be  a  gi-eater  de- 
mand for  flour,  beef,  and  pork,  in  New  England  and  Pennsylvania  alone, 
than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  world  and  Pennsylvania  and  New  England 
toirether  ? 

But  I  return  to  the  direct  question.  I  am  no  friend  to  the  act  of  1 857. 
It  is  peculiarly  a  manufacturer's  tariff,  and  a  highly  protective  tariff,  too ; 
in  mv  judgment  for  them  the  most  "  protective"  tariff  ever  enacted.  It 
"protects"  in  two  modes;  for  there  are  two  modes  of  "  protection."  It 
admits  the  raw  material  free,  and  it  lays  also  a  duty  upon  the  manufac- 


EEJIAKKS    ON   THE   TAEIFF.  195 

tured  article.  Never  was  tliere  sharper  practice  than  in  the  passage  of 
that  act.  It  is  entitled  "  an  act  reducing  the  duty  on  imports  :"  and  it 
does  reduce  duties,  and  the  reduction  is  apparently  great.  Revenue  it 
certainly  has  reduced.  But  mark  you,  sir;  how  does  that  reduction 
work?  Select  the  single  article  of  wooh  Under  the  act  of  1846,  all 
wool  paid  thirty  per  cent.,  and  manufactures  of  wool  twenty-four  per  cent. 
But  now  wool  under  twenty  cents  a  pound,  is  free  ;  and  manufactures  of 
wool  reduced  from  twenty-four  to  nineteen  per  cent.  Thus,  the  manufac- 
turer yields  six  and  gains  thirty  per  cent,  by  the  dexterous  manoeuvre  of 
the  3d  of  March,  1857.  And  thus,  too,  are  the  interests  of  the  producer, 
and  especially  of  the  agriculturist  of  the  West,  sacrificed  for  the  benefit 
of  the  manufacturing  interests  of  New  England ;  and  to-day,  New  Eng- 
land would  have  no  change  in  the  tariff". 

I  concede  very  readily,  that  in  the  aggregate  of  taxation,  viewing  it 
solely  as  a  tax,  the  act  of  1857  is  less  onerous  than  any  former  tariff,  and 
in  two  years,  perhaps,  and  with  a  heavy  importation,  it  might  yield  a 
revenue  sufficient  for  an  economical  Government.  But  as  a  tax,  simply, 
it  is  not  equal  and  just;  and  in  modifying  it,  whensoever  it  shall  be  modi- 
fied, I  insist  that  it  shall  be  made  to  conform  throughout,  to  the  just 
principles  of  taxation  which  I  have  laid  down.  Sir,  it  is  my  good  for- 
tune to  represent,  in  part,  an  agricultural  State,  and  especially  an  agri- 
cultural district.  We  have  two  millions  and  more  of  consumers,  and  a 
vast  multitude  of  producers ;  and  if  there  must  be,  and  I  think  that  there 
ought  to  be,  at  an  early,  but  fit  time,  a  revision  of  the  tariff  upon  just 
principles  of  taxation,  and  for  the  purposes  of  revenue,  after  a  reduction 
of  expenditures  to  the  lowest  rational  point,  I  demand  that,  in  adjusting 
it,  you  shall  regard  the  interests  of  Ohio  and  the  West. 

Sir,  I  have  said  that  Ohio  is  peculiarly  an  agricultural  State.  With 
two  millions  and  a  half  of  people,  she  has  twenty-five  millions  of  acres ; 
twenty  millions  occupied  by  or  attached  to  farms ;  eleven  millions  actually 
cultivated;  four  hundred  thousand  land  owners;  a  greater  number  of 
farms,  and  more  tillable  surface,  proportionally,  than  any  State  in  the 
Union.  The  cost  value  of  her  land  is  $600,000,000 ;  her  agricultural 
products  worth  $132,000,000,  equal  to  the  whole  cotton  crop  of  the 
South ;  and  her  entire  taxable  property  is  8900,000,000.  She  is  the  first 
wheat,  the  first  wool,  and  the  first  corn  growing  State ;  the  first  wine-pro- 
ducing, also  ;  and,  as  my  Cincinnati  colleagues  will  attest,  the  foremost  in 
the  production  of  swine.  Her  animal  products,  alone,  equal  $40,000,000, 
and  the  value  of  her  butter,  poultry,  and  eggs,  would  of  itself  support  half 
the  State  governments  of  New  England. 

And  yet,  Ohio  is  a  part,  and  a  small  part  only,  of  the  great  Mississippi 
valley,  that  most  wonderful  of  all  the  portions  of  the  globe,  the  very  Gar- 
den of  Eden  in  the  new  creation  in  the  political  apocalypse  of  the  Bish.op 


196  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

of  Clovne,  "  time's  noblest  empire  :"  the  scat,  too,  doubtless,  of  empires 
older  than  Thebes,  prouder  than  Tyre,  nobler  than  Nineveh,  but  whose 
memorials  have  perished  even  beyond  ruins  or  tradition ;  yet  destined 
once  again  to  become  the  seat  of  an  empire  to  which  you,  ve  proud 
men  and  wise  men  of  the  East,  will  yet  come,  bearing  your  frankincense 
and  your  tribute. 

But  I  rose,  not,  sir,  to  descant  upon  the  opening  glories  of  the  West, 
I  was  speaking  of  my  own  State  and  of  her  agricultural  greatness.  Nor 
will  I  abate  one  jot  or  tittle  from  her  manufacturing  interests,  for  she  is 
rich  in  all  that  constitutes  a  State.  And  I  beg  Pennsylvania  to  remember 
that  the  area  of  her  coal-fields  but  little  exceeds  the  area  of  the  coal-fields 
of  Ohio ;  that  Illinois  and  Virginia  are  both  before  her ;  and  that,  in  the 
production  and  ntanufacture  of  iron,  Ohio,  if  not  the  second,  is  certainly 
the  third  State  in  the  Union.  Yet  right  here  let  me  add,  that  her  hay 
crop  alone  equals  the  whole  value  of  her  manufactures  of  iron  in  all  its 
fonns.  But,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  coal  dealers,  and  the  ironmongers  of" 
Ohio  are  not  here  besieging  Congress  for  tariffs  and  bounties  to  protect 
them  from  ruin.  They  are  content — I  am  sure  they  ought  to  be  content 
— with  the  four-and-twenty  per  cent,  already  levied  upon  the  consumer. 
They  scorn,  as  I  think  they  ought  to  scorn,  your  favors,  and  will  eari'i  still, 
as  they  always  have  earned,  their  bread  by  the  sweat  of  their  browns.  Nor 
do  I  believe  that  Pennsylvania  has  fallen  from  her  high  estate,  her  revo- 
lutionary greatness,  when  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  her  sons  repelled 
the  bribes  of  George  III.,  saying,  with  the  true  spirit  and  in  the  very 
language  of  a  patriot,  "Sir,  I  am  not  worth  purchasing;  but  such  as  I 
am,  the  King  of  England  is  not  rich  enough  to  buy  me."  I  commend 
Pennsylvania  to  her  early  virtue  and  her  ancient  independence.  Let  her 
go  home  and  look  to  the  sturdy  and  the  manly  industry  of  her  sons,  and 
not  to  the  favors  and  largesses  of  Government  for  protection  and  for 
riches. 

Iron  is  more  in  common  use,  and  more  a  necessary  of  life,  than  coffee 
and  tea ;  and  is  it  not  quite  enough  that  the  consumers,  who  are  the 
many,  should  pay  twenty-four  per  cent,  or  one-fourth  its  value  ?  Sir, 
■whoever  pays  his  blacksmith  a  bill  of  forty  dollars,  pays  nearly  ten  dol- 
lars, or  one-fourth,  in  duty,  for  the  benefit  of  the  manufacturer.  And 
right  here,  let  me  say  to  the  people  of  Pennsylvania,  to  whose  "  sober 
second  thought,"  borne  doAvn  now  by  depression  of  trade  ever\-where, 
I  look  with  just  confidence,  and  to  her  politicians,  too,  who  are  pressing 
this  question  to  the  utmost,  but  whom  that  self-same  sober  second 
thought  will  send  back  into  obscurity,  bringing  again  to  public  life  the 
men  who  shall  be  found  true  to  principle  and  to  the  Constitution,  but  who 
may  perish  now  before  the  storm,  that  the  import  of  coal  into  the 
United  States  very  little  exceeds  the  export ;  that  it  already  pays  a  duty 


EEMARKS    ON   THE   TAEIFF.  197 

of  twenty-four  per  cent.,  or  nearly  one-fourth  of  its  value  ;  and  that  every 
year  the  quantity  drawn  from  her  mines  has  steadily  increased ;  but 
especiallv  that  the  depression  in  her  iron  interest,  at  this  moment,  is  not 
attributable  to  the  reduction  of  duty  (only  six  per  cent.)  upon  that  arti- 
cle by  the  act  of  1857,  since  the  importation  last  year  of  iron  and  its 
manufactures  of  every  kind,  was  $9,000,000  less  than  in  the  year  pre- 
ceding, and  812,000,000  less  than  in  1854.  It  is  because  the  con- 
sumption of  iron  is  diminished,  and  therefore  the  demand  less,  amid  the 
general  depression  of  trade  and  business  for  the  last  eighteen  mouths,  by 
reason,  too,  of  which,  all  other  interests,  also,  have  suffered,  that  her  fur- 
naces languish.  But  returning  trade  and  reviving  business  will  put 
them  all  again  into  blast,  without  the  aid  of  tariffs  and  contributions 
le\*ied  upon  her  sister  States. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  pursued  this  line  of  remark  further  than  I 
intended.  I  rose  not  to  discuss  the  tariff  generally,  but  to  select  and 
speak  upon  two  particular  products  in  which  my  own  State  is  especially 
interested,  but  which  are  utterly  sacrificed  in  the  tariff  of  1857,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  manufacturer  and  the  dealer,  and  to  give  notice  that  should 
a  bill  be  brought  before  the  House,  I  will,  at  the  proper  time,  propose 
the  necessary  amendments — I  refer  to  linseed  and  wool. 

I  do  not  know,  sir,  by  whose  fault  it  happened,  but  so  it  is,  that  a  dis- 
tinction is  made  in  the  act  of  1857  between  linseed  and  flaxseed.  The 
language  of  the  schedule  is  "  linseed,  but  not  embracing  flaxseed,  free." 
Now,  sir,  there  is  not  a  practical  agriculturist  who  does  not  know ;  there  is 
not  a  professor  of  theoretical,  scientific  agriculture,  who  ought  not  to 
know ;  there  is  not,  I  venture  to  affirm,  a  member  even  of  that  assemblage 
of  agricultural  savans  who  convened  in  this  city  the  other  day,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Commissioner  of  Patents,  who  is  ignorant  that  linseed  and 
flaxseed  are  precisely  one  and  the  same  thing.  It  is  so  in  every  lexicon 
and  in  every  cyclopedia.  It  is  so  in  your  "  Commerce  and  Navigation," 
and  in  your  finance  reports ;  and  it  was  so  regarded  in  the  earlier  tariffs. 
Linseed  is  Uneii  semen — the  seed  of  flax ;  and  the  result  has  been  that 
every  bushel  of  flaxseed  is  admitted  duty  tree. 

Mr.  Dawes.  Will  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  allow  me  to  explain  the 
difference  ? 

Mr.  Vau-andigham.  I  understand  the  gentleman  from  Massachu- 
setts ;  but  he  will  pardon  me.  I  have  been  too  lon'g  accustomed  to  ob- 
serve, if  not  to  practice,  agriculture,  not  to  know  that  whatever  nice  dis- 
tinctions may  be  drawn  by  dealers  for  their  own  benefit,  there  is  no  dif- 
ference. And  let  me  say  to  him,  that  the  same  happy  blunder  occurred 
in  the  act  of  1846,  linseed  being  rated  at  ten  per  cent.,  and  flaxseed  at 
twenty ;  but  no  "  linseed"  was  ever  imported  at  t€n ;  the  Government 
taking  good  care  to  collect  the  twenty  per  cent  upon  it,  by  whatever 


198  vallandigham's  speeches. 

name  called  vulgar  or  classic.  Tlie  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  held  to 
Shakspeare's  notions,  about  names  and  roses,  and  strnck  for  the  liighest 
revenue.  But,  under  the  tariti'of  1857,  "  linseed, not  embracing  flaxseed," 
being  made  duty  free,  the  draughtsman  of  the  act,  marvellous  to  relate, 
quite  fortrot  to  provide  a  separate  schedule  for  flaxseed  which  he  had  so 
carefully  distinguished  from  "  linseed."  There  was  no  reciprocity  here, 
sir  ;  no  "  flaxseed,  but  not  embracing  linseed."  And  the  result  has  been 
that  ncitJier  has  paid  a  dollar  of  duty  to  the  government  since. 

Mr.  CoMiss.  Who  was  the  drauirhtsman  of  the  act?  Where  did  it 
come  from  ? 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  T  cannot  say  of  a  certainty.  I  always  suspected 
it  to  be  of  New  England  paternity — possibly  from  the  firm  of  "  Stone, 
Lawrence  &  Co." 

But  to  resume.  Here,  then,  is  a  heavy  loss  of  revenue,  and  an  unjust 
discrimination  also  against  an  article  in  which  the  people  of  Ohio  and  of 
the  Miami  valley  are,  above  all  others,  interested.  The  sum  total  of  flax- 
seed, or  linseed,  raised  in  the  United  States  in  1850,  was  562,307  bushels. 
Of  this,  Ohio  alone  produced  188,000,  or  more  than  one-third  of  the 
whole  amount.  After  her,  in  the  table,  Kentucky  stands  next ;  and  after 
her.  New  York  and  Virginia ;  but  Ohio  equals  all  three.  The  quantity 
ha?  no  doubt  increased  since,  Ohio  still  retaining  her  pre-eminence.  And 
Indiana  now  is  also  largely  interested  in  the  article.  But  the  demand  is 
much  ^•reater  than  the  home  supply,  which  is  not  great;  because  flax  is 
an  exhausting  crop,  and  never  will  be  extensively  cultivated,unlessit  com- 
mands a  liberal  price.  Accordingly,  the  importation  of  flaxseed  during 
the  fiscal  year  ending  in  1858,  amounted  to  83,243,174,  a  slight  in- 
crease— 640,000 — upon  the  imports  of  1857.  Under  the  tarifi'of  1846, 
flaxseed  was  rated  at  twenty  per  cent.,  and  the  duty  in  1857  amoutited 
to  6600,764.80;  and,  had  it  remained  at  the  same  rate,  it  would  have 
yielded  a  revenue  last  year  of  8648,000. 

Unmanufactured  flax  is  in  the  same  category.      Under  the  tariff"  of 

1842,  it  paid  $20  a  ton  ;  in  1846,  fifteen  per  cent. ;  but,  under  the  act 

of  1857,  it  is  free.     Here,  again,  besides  the  unjust  discrimination  against 

the  producer  in  favor  of  the  manufacturer,  is  a  loss  of  revenue  to  the 

■  Government,  amounting  last  year  to  more  than  $30,000. 

But  I  pass  on  to  the  other  and  far  more  important  article  of  wool.  I 
have  said  that  Ohio  is  the  heaviest  wool-growing  State.  The  whole  num- 
ber of  sheep  in  the  United  States  in  18gO  was  21,723,220.  Of  this  num- 
ber, Ohio  had  3,942,929.  In  1854,  the  number  had  increased  to  4,845,- 
189.  It  has  decreased  since  ;  but  still  is  3,308,803.  Now,  it  so  happens 
that  I  re)iresent  the  smallest  wool  interest  of  all  the  nineteen  rural  dis- 
tricts of  the  State  ;  for  out  of  the  3,300,000  sheep,  Montgomery,  Butler, 
and  Preble  number  but  26,201.     The  immediate  interest  of  my  constitu- 


REMARKS    ON   THE   TARIFF.  199 

ents  in  wool,  therefore,  is  comparatively  small ;  but  the  interest  of  the 
State  is  great.  The  wool  clip  of  last  year  a  little  exceeded  10,000,000 
pounds,  valued  at  |3, 000,000.  The  whole  clip  in  the  United  States  in 
1850,  was  estimated  at  65,169,660  pounds,  worth  120,000,000.  It 
hardly  equals  that  amount,  or  sum,  now  ;  almost  certainl}^,  it  does  not 
exceed  it;  so  that  Ohio  probably  yields  more  than  one-sixth  of  the  entire 
quantity  grown  in  the  country. 

Now,  sir,  from  1816  to  1857,  wool  costing  ten  cents  a  pound  and 
over,  had  always  paid  a  duty ;  and,  during  the  greater  part  of  that  time, 
all  wool  paid  some  dut}^  more  or  less,  according  to  the  scale  of  the 
tarift'.  Under  the  Act  of  1846  it  was  rated  at  thirty  per  cent.,  without 
reference  to  quality  or  cost.  But,  by  the  tariff  of  1857,  wool  worth 
twenty  cents  a  pound  and  under,  at  the  port  of  exportation,  is  admitted 
duty  free.  Now,  sir,  in  1857,  wool  was  imported  to  the  value  of 
$2,125,744,  and  being  all  subject  to  a  duty  of  thirty  per  cent.,  paid  in 
revenue  the  sum  of  $637,723.20.  In  1858,  the  first  year  of  the  present 
tariff,  the  importation  of  wool  of  the  value  of  twenty  cents  and  under 
rose  to  $3,843,320,  upon  wliich  a  duty  would  have  been  levied  under 
the  Act  of  1846,  of  $1,152,996.  In  the  same  year,  wool  worth  more 
than  twenty  cents,  was  imported  to  the  value  of  only  $179,315  ;  paying 
a  duty  of  twenty-four  per  cent.,  of  only  $43,035.60.  Thus  the  excess  of  free 
over  dutiable  wool  in  the  first  year  of  the  Act  was  $3,664,005.  Practi- 
cally, therefore,  all  wool  is  free.  And  thus  it  is  that  the  revenues  of 
the  Government  are  largely  diminished ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  in- 
terests of  the  producing  classes,  and  especially  in  Ohio,  utterly  disre- 
garded in  the  Act  of  1857.  Sir,  upon  these  two  articles  alone,  the  loss 
of  revenue  last  year  was  $1,800,000. 

Mr.  PuRviANCE.  Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  say  this  ?  The 
bill  to  which  he  refers,  as  framed  in  this  House,  did  give  the  gentleman 
the  protection  which  he  demands.  When  it  went  to  the  Senate  it  was 
there  taken  in  charge  by  Mr.  Hunter,  and  it  was  through  the  gentle- 
man's own  friends  in  the  Senate  that  the  protection  which  he  claims 
was  denied. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  I  am  not  claiming  "  protection"  at  all.  I  de- 
mand only  just  and  equal  taxation.  But  the  bill  which  first  passed  this 
House  did  admit  wool  worth  fifteen  cents  duty  free  ;  and,  more  than 
that,  if  the  value  exceeded  fifty  cents,  it  was  also  free.  It  was  this  bill, 
and  not  that  which  finally  becarne  a  law,  which  my  colleague  [Mr.  Stan- 
ton] so  vehemently  assailed  on  the  20th,  and  again  upon  the  23d  of 
February,  two  years  ago  yesterday,  in  a  debate  to  which  I  listened  as  a 
spectator  in  the  galleries  of  the  old  Hall. 

Mr.  Phelps,  of  Missouri.  I  would  suggest,  however,  to  the  gentle- 
man from  Pennsylvania,  [Mr.  Purviance]  that  the  predecessor  [Mr. 


200  vallandiqham's  speeches. 

Campbell]  of  tlic  gentleman   from   Ohio  was  upon  the  committee  of 
conference  whicli  agreed  to  that  tariff  bill  in  its  present  shape. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  Certainly  my  predecessor  was  on  that  commit- 
tee of  conference  consenting  to  the  report,  and,  as  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means,  conducted  it  through  the  House,  to  which 
it  was  reported  on  the  2d  of  March,  and  passed,  as  so  much  other  mis- 
chievous legislation  is  passed,  in  the  last  hours  of  the  session,  under  the 
Previous  Question,  having  been  read  only  at  the  desk  of  the  Clerk. 

Mr.  CoMiNS.  I  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  if  there  is  a  pound  of 
wool  gvown  in  his  State,  which  is  not  protected  at  the  rate  of  twenty- 
fcnir  per  cent.  ? 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  Perhaps  not ;  and,  according  to  the  theory  of 
the  gentleman  and  his  friends,  the  influx  of  foreign  wool  will  forever  forbid 
the  production  of  cheap  wools  in  the  State  ;  and  thus  the  small  farmer, 
without  capital  enough  to  deal  in  sheep  of  the  finer  breeds,  be  driven 
from  the  market.  But  upon  the  higher-priced  wools  the  effect  of  ad- 
mitting the  article,  when  worth  twenty  cents  and  under,  duty  free,  is 
indirect  rather  than  direct.  It  is  a  premium  for  the  manufacture  of 
coarse'  woolens,  and  therefore — 

Mr.  CovoDE.  Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  correct  him  right 
here  ? 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  No,  sir,  I  cannot.  I  will  yield  to  no  one, 
friend  or  foe,  in  the  midst  of  a  sentence.  I  interrupt  no  one  thus,  and 
I  will  consent  to  no  such  interruption  for  any  purpose.  The  dignity 
and  decorum  of  this  body,  as  an  assembly  of  statesmen,  are  utterly  de- 
graded by  these  continual  and  persistent  interruptions,  corrupting  all 
legitimate  debate,  and  converting  every  speech  into  a  maze  or  convolu- 
tion of  disjointed  dialogues,  and  this  Hall  into  a  stage  where  each  man 
plays  many  parts,  but  with  none  of  the  genius  or  the  delicacy  and  re- 
finement of  the  classic  drama.  Our  debates,  sir,  are  becoming  now  but 
empty  or  angry  wrangles,  in  which  assurance,  petulance,  bluff  repartee, 
and  mediocre  smartness,  assert  supremacy  over  modesty,  logic,  learning, 
eloquence,  and  all  the  other  qualities  which  become  a  statesman.  I 
mean  no  disrespect  to  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  but  he  must  par- 
don me  for  declining  to  yield. 

To  resume  :  I  was  about  to  say  that  the  effect  upon  the  costlier  wools 
of  admitting  cheap  wool  duty  free,  was  incidental  rather  than  immediate 
inasmuch  as  it  directs  capital  to  the  manufacture  of  the  coarser  woolens, 
upon  which  there  is  a  greater  profit,  to  the  neglect  of  the  finer  cloths 
thus  diminishing  the  demand  for  the  higher  priced  wool,  and  of  course 
decreasing  the  price. 

But  this  is  not  all ;  for  while  the  interests  of  the  producer  are  thus 
disregarded  in  the  admission  of  flax,  flaxseed,  and  wool,  free,  good  care 


rNTASiON  OF  hakpeb's  ferky.  201 

is  had  that  the  several  manufactures  of  these  articles  shall  pay  a  suffi- 
cient duty ;  and  accordingly  flaxseed,  oil  and  oil-cake,  are  rated  at  fif- 
teen, and  manufactures  of  wool  at  nineteen  per  cent. ;  and  thus  the 
producer  is  permitted  to  purchase  back  his  linens,  oil,  oil-cake,  and 
woolens,  with  the  addition  of  fifteen  and  nineteen  per  cent,  to  the  price 
at  which  he  might  have  purchased  them  had  they  been  placed  in  the 
free  list,  alongside  of  his  free  linseed,  free  flax,  and  free  wool. 

I  have  now  said  what  I  intended  to  say  on  this  subject  at  the  present 
time ;  and  conclude  with  the  notice  that,  should  any  tariff  bill  be  re- 
ported at  this  session,  I  shall  move,  as  a  substitute,  that  the  tariff  o€ 
1846  be  revived  for  two  years  from  the  1st  day  of  July  next,  so  that, 
meantime,  a  revision  of  the  Act  of  1857  may  be  had,  adhering  to  the 
principle  of  advalorems,  and  also  to  all  the  other  rules  of  equal  and 
just  taxation. 


! LETTER  0>T  THE.IJfVASIOX  OP  HARPER'S  FERRY,  1859.* 

Dayton,  Ohio,  Saturday,   October  22,  1859. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer : 

The  Cincinnati  Gazette  of  yesterday  contains  what  purports  to  be  a 
conversation  between  John  Brown,  the  Harper's  Ferry  Insurgent  and 
myself.  The  editorial  criticism  in  that  paper,  while  unjust,  is,  neverthe- 
less, moderate  and  decent  in  temper  and  language.  Not  so  the  vulgar 
but  inoffensive  comments  of  the  Commercial  and  the  Ohio  State 
Journal  of  to-day.  Self-respect  forbids  to  a  gentleman  any  notice  of 
such  assaults.  But  the  report  and  editorial  of  the  Gazette  convey  an 
erroneous  impression,  which  I  desire  briefly  to  correct. 

Passing  of  necessity  through  Harper's  Ferry,  on  Wednesday  last,  on 
my  way  home  from  Washington  City,  I  laid  over  at  that  place  between 
morning  and  evening  trains  for  the  West.  Through  the  politeness  of 
Colonel  Lee,  the  commanding  officer,  I  was  allowed  to  enter  the  armory 
inclosure.  Inspecting  the  several  objects  of  interest  there,  and  among 
them  the  office  building,  I  carao  to  the  room  where  Browa  and  Stevens 
lay,  and  went  in ;  not  aware  till  I  entered,  that  Senator  Mason  or  any 

*  Returning  from  a  visit  to  Washington  in  October,  1859,  Mr.  Vallandigham 
was  detained  on  the  way,  by  the  "John  Brown"  Raid,  and  was  thus  compelled  to 
hear  the  first  gun  and  witness  the  first  shedding  of  blood  in  the  great  civil  war  in 
America.  He  held  a  short  conversation  with  Brown,  which  being  reported  in  tho 
papers,  he  was  violently  assailed,  and  in  reply  wrote  tho  letter  here  published. 


202  valla>'T)igham's  speeches. 

reporter  was  present^  and  without  anv  purpose  of  asking  a  single  ques- 
tion of  the  pris'^ners  ;  and,  had  there  been  no  prisoners  therv\  I  should 
hare  visited  and  inspected  the  place  jost  as  I  did,  in  all  these  partica- 
kxs. 

Xo  "interview"  was  asked  for  by  me  or  any  one  else  of  John  Brown,  and 
none  granted,  whether  ^  voluntarily  and  out  of  pare  good  will''  or  other- 
wise. Brown  had  no  voice  in  the  matter,  the  room  being  equally  open 
to  all  who  were  permitte<i  to  enter  the  Armory  inclosure.  All  went 
and  came  alike,  without  consulting  Brown ;  nor  did  he  know  either 
mvseh"  or  the  other  arentlemen  with  whom  he  conversed.  Enterins:  the 
room  I  found  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  there,  casually,  together  with 
eight  or  tea  others,  and  Brown  conversing  freely  with  all  who  chose  to 
addre&s  him.  Indeed  he  seemed  eager  to  talk  to  every  one ;  and  new 
visitors  were  coming  and  going  every  moment.  There  was  no  arrange- 
ment to  have  any  reporters  ;  nor  did  I  observe,  for  some  riiinutes  after 
I  Entered,  that  any  were  presenL  Some  one  from  New  York  was  ta- 
king sketches  of  Brown  and  Stevens  daring  the  conversation,  and  the 
reporter  of  the  Herald  made  himself  known  to  me  a  short  time  after- 
wards ;  but  I  saw  nothing  of  the  Gazette  reporter  till  several  hours  later, 
and  then  at  the  hotel  in  the  village. 

Finding  Brown  anxious  to  talk  and  ready  to  answer  any  one  who 
chose  to  ask  a  question,  and  havinof  heard  that  the  insurrection  had 
been  planned  at  the  Ohio  State  Fair  held  at  Zanesville,  in  September, 
I  very  naturally  made  the  inquiry  of  him,  among  other  things,  as  to 
the  truth  of  the  statement.  Learning  from  his  answers  that  he  had 
lived  in  Ohio  for  fifty  years,  and  had  visited  the  State  in  May  or  June 
last,  I  prosecuted  my  inquirL-s,  to  ascertain  what  connection  his  conspir- 
acy might  have  had  with  tht^-'Ob-'rUn  Rescue"  trials  then  pending,  and 
the  insurrectionarr  movement  at  that  time  ma»ie  in  the  Western  Re- 
serve, to  organize  forcible  resistance  to  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law ;  and  I  have  now  only  to  regret  that  I  did  not  pursue  the 
matter  farther,  asking  more  questions,  and  making  them  more  specific. 
It  is  possible  that  some  others  who  are  so  tenderly  sensitive  in  regard 
to  what  was  developed,  might  have  been  equally  implicated-  Indeed, 
it  is  incredible  that  a  mere  casual  conversation,  such  as  the  one  held 
bv  me  and  John  Brown,  should  excite  such  paroxysms  of  rage  and  call 
forth  so  much  vulgar  but  impotent  vituperation,  unless  there  be  much 
more  yet  undisclosed-  Certain  it  is  that  three  of  the  negroes,  and  they 
frx>m  Oberlin,  and  at  least  six  of  the  white  men,  nine  in  all  out  of  the 
nineteen,  including  John  Brown,  the  leader  of  the  insurrectioi^  were, 
or  ha-l  been  fit>m  Ohio,  where  they  had  received  sympathy  and  counsel, 
if  not  material  aid  in  their  conspiracy. 

But  the  vidt  and  interrogation  were  both  casual,  and  did  not  con- 


rsTASiox  OF  haepze's  feeey.  203 

tiaue  over  twentv  micutes  at  the  longest.  Brown,  so  far  from  being 
exiiausted,  volunteered  several  speeches  to  the  reporter,  and  more  thaa 
once  insisted  that  the  onversatioa  did  not  disturb  or  annoy  him  in  the 
leasL  The  report  in  the  y^eio  York  Herald,  of  October  21st,  is  gen- 
erallv  verv  accurate,  thousjh  several  of  the  questions  attributed  to  me, 
and  particiilarly  the  first  four,  ought  to  have  l»en  put  in  the  mouth  of 
^  Bvstander,*'  if  ho,  by  the  wav,  represents  at  least  half  a  score  of  »iiffer- 
ent  persons. 

As  to  the  charge  preferred  of  '*  breach  of  g'»d  taste  and  propriety," 
Mid  all  that,  I  propose  to  judge  of  it  for  myself!  having  been  present 
on  the  occasion-  There  was  neither  "interview,"  ~  catechising,"  "^in- 
quisition." •'  pumpinz,"  nor  any  effort  of  the  iind,  but  a  short  and 
casual  conversation  with  the  leafier  of  a  b«>ld  and  munierous  insurrec- 
tion, a  man  of  sinojular  rntelligepce,  in  ftill  p>ssession  of  all  his  £ko1- 
ties,  and  anxious  to  explain  his  plans  and  motives,  -s>)  fer  as  was  possible 
without  implicating  his  confederates  otherwise  than  by  declining  to  an- 
swer.    The  developments  are  important :  let  the  gallei  jaiies  wince. 

And  now,  allov  me  to  add,  that  it  is  vain  to  underrate  either  the 
man  or  his  conspira<^v.  Captain  John  Brown  is  as  brave  and  res'jlute  a 
man  as  ever  hea-ied  an  insurrection ;  and,  in  a  good  cause  and  with  a 
sufficient  force,  would  have  been  a  consunmiate  partisan  cominaiidei^ 
He  has  coolness,  daring,  persistency,  the  stoic  faith  and  patience,  and  x 
firmness  of  will  and  purp>>se  unconquerable.  He  is  tall,  wiry,  niosciilar, 
but  with  little  flesh,  with  a  cold  arav  eve,  crrav  hair,  beard  and  mostadie 
compressed  lips,  and  sharp  aquiline  nose  ;  of  cast  iron  &ce  and  fiame, 
and  with  powers  of  endurance  equal  to  any  thing  needled  to  be  done  or 
suffered  in  any  cause.  Though  en^age^l  in  a  wicked,  ma<i,  and  ^m***^***! 
enterprise,  he  i?  the  farthest  possible  remove  fr«>m  the  ordinary  ruffian, 
fenade  or^aiman ;  but  his  p<3wers  are  rather  executory  than  inventive^ 
and  he  never  had  the  depth  or  breadth  of  mind  to  originate  aaid  contrive 
himself  the  plan  of  insurrection  which  he  tmderto.)k  to  carry  out.  Tlie 
conspirai?y  was  unquestionably  far  more  extende-l  than  yet  aj^>ears, 
numbering  among  the  conspirators  many  more  than  the  handftil  of  fol- 
lowers who  assailed  Harper's  Ferry  ;  and  having  in  the  Xorth  and  West, 
if  not  also  in  the  South,  as  its  counsellors  and  abettors,  men  of  inteBi- 
gence,  position,  and  wealth.  Certainly  it  was  one  among  the  best 
planned  and  executed  conspiracies  that  ever  failed. 

For  two  years  he  had  been  plotting  and  prepaiins:  it  with  aiders  and 
comforters  a  thousand  miles  apart,  in  the  slave  States  and  the  free ;  fat 
sir  months  he  lived  without  so  much  as  suspicion  in  a  slave  State,  and 
near  the  scene  of  the  insurrection,  winning  even  the  esteem  and  confi- 
dence of  his  neighbors,  yet  collecting  day  by  day  large  quantities  of 
anns,  and  making  ready  for  the  outbreak.     He  had  as  mmpL'trf'  aa 


204  vallandigham's  speeches. 

equipment,  even  to  intrenching  tools,  as  anj-  commander  in  a  regular 
campaign,  and  intended,  like  Napoleon,  to  make  war  support  war.  lie 
had  Sharpens  rifles  and  Maynard's  revolvers  for  marksmen,  and  pikes  for 
the  slaves.  In  the  dead  hour  of  night,  crossing  the  Potomac,  he  seized 
the  Armory,  with  many  thousand  stand  of  arms  and  other  munitions  of 
war  ;  and,  making  prisoners  of  more  than  thirty  of  the  workmen,  officers, 
and  citizens,  overawed  the  town  of  Harpers  Ferry  with  its  thousand  in- 
habitants. With  less  than  half  a  score  of  men  survivintr,  he  held  the 
Armory  for  many  hours,  refusing,  though  cut  off  from  all  succor  and 
surrounded  upon  all  sides,  to  surrender,  and  was  taken  with  sword  in 
hand,  overpowered  by  superior  numbers,  yet  fighting  to  the  last.  Du- 
ring this  short  insurrection  eighteen  men  were  killed  and  ten  or  more 
severely  wounded — twice  the  number  killed  and  wounded  on  the  part 
of  the  American  forces  at  the  battle  of.  New  Orleans. 

John  Brown  failed  to  excite  a  general,  and  most  wicked,  bloody,  and 
desolating  servile  and  civil  war,  only  because  the  slaves  and  non-slavc- 
holding  white  men  of  the  vicinity,  the  former  twenty  thousand  in  num- 
ber, would  not  rise.  He  had  prepared  arms  and  ammunition  for  fifteen 
hundred  men,  and  captured  at  the  first  blow  enough  to  arm  more  than 
fifty  thousand ;  and  yet  he  had  less  than  thirty  men — more,  neverthe- 
less, than  have  begun  half  the  revolutions  and  conspiracies  which  his- 
tory records.  But  he  had  not  tampered  with  slaves,  nor  solicited  the 
non-slaveholding  whites  around  him,  because  he  really  believed  that 
the  moment  the  blow  Avas  struck  they  would  gather  to  his  standard,  and 
expected  furthermore  the  promised  re-enforcements  instantly  from  the 
North  and  West.  This  was  the  basis  upon  which  the  whole  conspiracy 
was  planned ;  and  had  his  belief  been  well  founded,  he  would  unques- 
tionably have  succeeded  in  stirring  up  a  most  formidable  insurrection, 
possibly  involving  the  peace  of  the  whole  country,  and  requiring  cer- 
tainly great  armies  and  vast  treasury  to  suppress  it. 

Here  was  his  folly  and  madness.  He  believed  and  acted  upon  the 
faith  which  for  twenty  years  has  been  so  persistently  taught  in  every 
form  throughout  the  free  States,  and  which  is  but  another  mode  of 
statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  "  irrepressible  conflict,"  that  slavery 
and  the  three  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  slaveholders  of  the  South 
are  only  tolerated,  and  that  the  millions  of  slaves  and  non-slaveholding 
white  men  are  ready  and  eager  to  rise  against  the  "  oligarchy,"  needing 
only  a  leader  and  deliverer.  The  conspiracy  was  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  doctrines  proclaimed  every  day,  year  in  and 
year  out,  by  the  apostles  of  Abolition.  But  Brown  was  sincere,  earnest, 
persistent ;  he  proposed  to  add  works  to  his  faith,  reckless  of  murder, 
treason,  and  every  other  crime.  This  was  his  madness  and  folly.  He 
perishes,  justly  and  miserably,  an  insurgent  and  a  felon.     But  guiltier 


THEEE   IS   A   WEST.  205 

than  he,  and  with  his  blood  upon  their  heads,  are  the  false  and  cowardly 
prophets  and  teachers  of  Abolition. 


THERE  IS  A  WEST;  FOR  THE  UXION  FORETER;  OUTSIDE  OF  THE 

UNION,  FOR  HERSELF. 

SPEECH  IN  THE    HOtJSE    OF    REPRESENTATIVES,  DECEMBER    15,   1859,  UPON 
THE  QUESTION  OF  ELECTING  A  SPEAKER. 

Mr.  Clerk  :  Desiring  to  speak  at  some  length,  and  with  some  re- 
gard to  method,  upon  the  more  important  subjects  whi^h  have  been 
introduced  into  this  debate,  I  cannot  consent  to  yield  the  floor  ex- 
cept upon  a  point  of  order,  or  for  a  strictly  personal  explanation.  I 
claim  no  right  myself  to  interrupt  others  for  the  purpose  of  interro- 
gatory or  catechising,  and  in  return  acknowledge  no  right  in  them  to 
subject  me  to  cross-examination  as  a  witness  upon  this  floor.  I  trust, 
along  with  other  informs,  to  see  the  ancient  decorum  and  propriety  of 
legitimate  debate  restored  within  these  walls.  In  nothing,  therefore, 
which  I  propose  to  say,  do  I  mean  to  offend,  by  personal  reflection  upon 
any  member  of  this  House. 

And  now,  in  the  first  place,  Mr.  Clerk,  allow  me  to  say  that  I  do  not 
regret  this  discussion.  I  lament,  indeed,  that  it  has  not,  at  all  times, 
been  conducted  in  a  better  temper.  Had  it  been  possible  to  avoid  it 
altogether,  certainly  it  would  have  been  preferable  that  it  had  never 
been  commenced ;  but  no  one  familiar  with  the  temper  of  the  whole 
country,  reflected  back  in  the  Representatives  of  the  country,  and  con- 
centrated here  into  one  intense  focus,  could  have  expected  a  week  to 
pass  after  organization  without  an  "explosion  more  formidable,  per- 
haps, and  in  a  more  questionable  shape.  This,  in  my  judgment,  is  a 
better  time  and  mode  in  which  to  meet  it  than  any  other.  But,  gentle- 
men of  the  House  of  Representatives,  let  us  conduct  it  at  all  times  with 
the  temper  and  courtesy  which  become  a  legislative  assembly.  And 
yet  the  admonition  is  almost  needless  here.  Although  within  these 
walls  are  assembled  the  two  hundred  and  forty-two  Representatives  and 
Delegates  from  the  thirty-eight  States  and  Territories  of  the  Union, 
bringing  with  them  every  variety  of  personal  a"nd  sectional  temper  and 
peculiarity ;  assembled,  too,  in  the  midst  of  a  popular  feeling  more  per- 
vading and  more  deeply  stirred  up  than  at  any  former  period,  in  one-half 
at  least  of  these  States,  and  upon  the  eve  of  startling,  and,  it  may  be, 
disastrous  events,  yet  without  organization,  without  rules,  without  a 
Speaker  to  command,  or  a  Scrgeant-at-Arms  to  execute — without  gavel 


206  V ALL AXDiG ham's  speeches. 

or  mace — the  instinct  of  self-government  peculiar  to  the  Ano^lo-Saxon 
race,  and  the  habit  of  self-command  and  of  obedience  to  but  the  shadow 
even  of  law  and  authority,  have,  for  now  these  ten  days  pq,st.  secured  us 
not  only  from  collision  and  violence,  but,  for  the  most  part,  from  breach 
even  of  the  strictest  decorum  observed  by  our  predecessors  in  this  Hall 
at  any  period  of  our  history.  How  sublime  the  spectacle  !•  how  gra*d 
this  illustration  of  the  spirit  of  free  government !  There  is  but  one 
other  country  upon  the  globe  where  a  similar  spectacle  could  be  ex- 
hibited. 

I  do  not,  then,  regret  this  debate  ;  it  is  fit  and  proper  in  itself  It  is 
strictly  parliamentary.  You  have  a  right  by  English  precedent ;  you 
have  a  right  by  American  precedent ;  by  the  usages  of  this  House,  to 
discuss  the  qualifications  of  your  candidates  for  Speaker.  If  any  mem- 
ber of  this  House  has  indorsed  and  recommended  a  book  full  of  senti- 
ments insurrectionary  and  hostile  to  the  domestic  peace  and  tranquillity 
of  the  country — a  book  intended  or  tending  to  stir  up  discord  or  strife 
between  the  diflferent  sections  of  this  Union,  or  servile  or  other  insurrec- 
tion in  any  one  or  more  States  of  this  Union,  and  refuses  still  to  disavow 
Evmpathy  with  the  sentiments  and  purposes  of  such  llDok,  he  is  not  fit  to 
be  Speaker  or  member  of  this  House.  Whether  any  one  who  has  recom- 
mended such  a  book  for  wholesale  circulation,  not  knowing,  or  caring  to 
inquire  into  its  character  and  contents — who  has  indorsed  insurrection 
and  violence  in  blank,  and  given  a  cordial  letter  of  credit  to  whatsoever 
the  Abolition  authors  of  the  "  Helper  book"  might  choose  to  say  and 
to  circulate  throughout  the  South,  is  competent  for  Speaker,  or  fit  to  be 
trusted  in  the  Speakership,  this  House  must  determine ;  and  the  country, 
gentlemen,  must  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  decision. 

But,  Mr.  Clerk,  this  whole  subject  and  controversy  has  assumed  a 
character  and  magnitude  which  impel  me  to  break  the  silence  which  I 
thus  far  have  observed.  Sentiments  have  been  avowed  and  statements 
made  upon  this  floor  which  demand  notice  and  reply. 

[At  this  point  Mr.  YALLAXDinnAM  gave  way  to  a  motion  to  adjourn,  which  was 
negatived.  lie  then  said  that  he  should  decline  to  pursue  any  farther  that  night 
the  line  of  remark  which  he  had  proposed  to  himself;  and,  the  House  having 
again  refused  to  adjourn,  he  proceeded  to  read  and  refer  to  matters  which,  forming 
no  part  of  what  he  designed  to  say  in  the  first  place,  are  omitted  here.  (See  Con- 
gressional Globe,  page  159.)  The  House,  after  several  other  motions,  having 
finally  adjourned,  the  next,  morning  he  resumed  as  follows  :] 

Though  a  young  man  still,  I  have  seen  some  legislative  service.  One 
of  the  earliest  lessons  which  I  taught  myself  as  a  legislator,  and  which  I 
have  sought  to  exemplify  in  every  department  of  life,  was  so  to  be  a 
politician  as  not  to  forget  that  I  was  a  gentleman.  There  is  a  member 
of  this  House,  now  present,  with  whom,  some  years  ago,  I  served  in  the 


THERE   IS   A    WEST.  207 

legislature  of  my  State,  and  to  him  I  might  with  perfect  confidence  ap- 
peal to  verify  the  assertion  that  no  man  ever  was  more  exact  in  the  ob- 
servance of  every  rule  of  courtesy  and  decorum,  not  only  in  debate,  but 
in  private  intercourse  with  his  fellows.  I  might  appeal,  also,  to  the  mem- 
bers here  present  of  the  last  Congress,  and  to  every  member  of  this 
House  of  Representatives,  and  demand  of  them  whether  I  have  offended 
in  any  thing,  in  public  or  private,  in  word  or  by  deed. 

Now,  Mr.  Clerk,  that  courtesy  which  I  thus  readily  extend  to  others 
I  am  resolved  to  exact  for  myself,  at  all  times  and  at  every  hazard.  I 
had  a  right,  yesterday,  especially  after  yielding  for  a  ballot,  at  a  time 
when  the  Republican  party  with  confidence  anticipated  the  election  of 
their  candidate  for  Speaker,  to  expect  the  usual  courtesy,  scarce  ever  re- 
fused, of  an  adjournment.  If  any  gentleman,  this  morning,  after  a  night's 
calm  reflection,  sees,  in  any  thing  that  I  have  ever  said  or  done,  here  or 
elsewhere,  any  justification  for  the  extraordinary  yet  very  discreditable 
scenes  of  yesterday,  enacted  by  grown-up  men  and  Representatives,  I  do 
not  envy  him  the  mental  or  moral  obliquity  of  his  vision. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  heard  it  said  many  years  ago,  and  my  reading  and  obser- 
vations of  the  proceedings  of  this  House  and  of  the  Senate  have  taught 
me  the  truth  of  the  declaration,  that  there  was  a  marked  difference  be- 
tween the  deportment  of  the  anti-slavery  men  in  Congress  toward  slave- 
holders and  their  own  Democratic  colleagues  from  the  free  States.  Sir, 
I  want  no  better  evidence  of  that  fact  than  the  occurrences  of  yesterday. 

I  said  then,  that  if  any  member  of  this  House  had  indorsed  a  book 
full  of  sentiments  which  were  insurrectionary  and  hostile  to  the  domestic 
peace  and  tranquillity  of  this  country — a  book  intended  or  tending  to  in- 
cite servile  insurrection  in  one  or  more  of  the  States  of  this  Union,  and 
refused  still,  either  by  himself  or  through  another,  to  disavow  all  sym- 
pathy with  such  sentiments,  he  was  not  fit  to  be  Speaker  or  member  of 
this  House.  That  judgment  I,  this  morning,  deliberately  reaffirm  in  all 
its  length  and  breadth  and  significance.  The  other  day  the  gentleman 
from  Virginia  (Mr.  Millston),  a  slaveholder,  distinctly  declared  upon 
this  floor,  with  all  the  emphasis  he  could  command,  that  any  one  who 
would  incite  a  servile  insurrection,  or  knowingly  distribute  books  or 
papers  with  that  design,  was  not  only  not  fit  to  be  Speaker,  but  not  fit 
to  live.  There  was  then  upon  that  side  of  this  Chamber  no  sign,  not 
even  a  whisper,  of  indignation  or  resentment.  No,  gentlemen,  you  sat 
in  your  seats,  under  that  just  but  scathing  denunciation,  mute  as  fishes, 
and  gentle  as  lambs.  Even  your  candidate  for  Speaker  started  to  his 
feet,  and,  with  manifest  trepidation,  disavowed  every  purpose  and  senti- 
ment of  the  kind.  Now,  gentlemen  of  the  Republican  party,  once  for 
all  and  most  respectfully,  not  in  the  language  of  menace,  but  as  sober 
'truth,  receive  this  message  from  me,  greeting  :  I  am  your  peer ;  I  repre- 


208  VALLANDIGnAM's    SPEECHES. 

sent  a  constituency  as  brave,  as  Intelliirent,  a.s  noble,  and  as  free  as  the 
best  among  you  upon  this  floor — and  in  their  name  and  in  my  own  name, 
1  tell  yon  that  just  whatsoever  rights,  privileges,  courtesies,  liberties,  or 
any  thing  else,  you — whether  from  apprehension  of  personal  danger  or 
from  any  other  cause — you,  brave  men  at  home  vaunting  arrantly  there 
your  rebukes  here  of  Southern  insolence  and  bravado — you,  who  return 
to  your  constituents  at  the  end  of  every  session  bearing  with  you  the 
scalps  of  half  a  score  of  fire-eaters  from  Alabama,  Mississippi,  or  the 
Carolinjis — you  are  accustomed  to  extend  to  slaveholders  and  Southern 
men  upon  this  floor,  I,  as  your  peer,  demand  and  will  have  at  your 
hands.  If  you  think  otherwise,  you  have  much  yet  to  learn  of  the 
character  of  the  man  with  whom  you  have  to  deal.  I  am  as  good  a 
Western  fire-eater  as  the  hottest  salamander  in  this  Ilouse.  (Laughter 
and  applause.) 

I  have  been  served  with  a  notice  this  morning  that  the  Republican 
party  here  do  not  intend  to  listen  to  any  further  discussion.  Very  re- 
spectfully, I  care  not  whether  they  listen  or  not.  Let  me  tell  them  that 
the  country  holds  its  breath  in  suspense  at  the  lightest  word  uttered  in 
this  Hall.  The  people  of  the  United  States  are  listening  at  this 
moment  to  catch  every  syllable  which  falls  from  the  lips  of  the  humblest 
member  here. 

I  propose  now,  sir,  to  address  myself  to  those  subjects  only  which  I 
desisrned,  from  the  beginning,  to  discuss. 

I  have  said,  and  repeat,  that  the  sentiments  which  have  been  avowed 
and  the  statements  made  upon  this  floor  demanding  notice  and  reply 
impel  me  to  break  the  silence  which  I  have  thus  far  observed.  The 
North  and  the  South  stand  here  arrayed  against  each  other.  "Upon  the 
one  side  I  behold  numerical  power ;  upon  the  other,  the  violent,  even 
fierce  spirit  of  resistance.  Disunion  has  been  threatened.  Sir,  in  all 
this  controversy,  so  far  as  it  is  sectional,  I  occupy  the  position  of  armed 
KEUTRALiTY.  I  am  uot  a  Northern  man.  I  have  little  sympathy  with 
the  North,  no  very  good  feeling  for,  and  I  am  bound  to  her  by  no  tie 
whatsoever,  other  than  what  once  were  and  ought  always  to  be  among 
the  strongest  of  all  ties — a  common  language  and  common  country.* 
Least  of  all  am  I  that  most  unseemly  and  abject  object  of  all  political 
spectacles — "  A  Northern  man  with  Southern  principles  ;"  but,  God  be 
thanked,  still  a  United  States  man  with  United  States  principles.  When 
I  emigrate  to  the  South,  take  up  my  abode  there,  identify  myself  with 
her  interests,  holding  slaves  or  holding  none  ;  then,  and  not  till  then,- will 
I  have  a  right,  and  will  it  be  my  duty,  and  no  doubt  my  pleasure  to 
maintain  and  support  Southern  principles  and  Southern  institutions. 

*  See  post,  page  4^2. 


THERE    IS    A   WEST.  209 

Then,  sir,  I  am  not  a  Southern  man,  either — although,  in  this  unholy 
and  most  unconstitutional  crusade  against  the  South,  in  the  midst  of  the 
invasion,  arson,  insurrection,  and  murder  to  which  she  has  been  subject, 
and  with  which  she  is  still  threatened — with  the  torch  of  the  incendiary 
and  the  dagger  of  the  assassin  suspended  over  her — my  most  cordial 
sympathies  are  wholly  with  her. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  have  heard  a  good  deal  said  here  and  elsewhere,  about 
"  Southern  Rights."  Sir,  I  have  no  respect — none — none — for  South- 
em  rights  merely  because  they  are  Southern  rights.  They  are  yours, 
gentlemen — not  mine.  Maintain  them  here,  within  the  Union,  firmly, 
fearlessly,  boldly,  quietly — do  it  like  men.  Defend  them  here  and  every- 
where, and  with  all  the  means  in  your  power,  as  I  know  you  will  and  as 
I  know  you  can.  Yorktown  and  New  Orleans — the  end  of  the  Revo- 
lution  and  the  end  of  the  war  of  1812 — are  both  vours,  and  there  is  no 
power  on  earth  that  can  subdue  or  conquer  you. 

But  while  I  have  no  respect  for  Southern  rights  simply  because  they 
are  Southern  rights,  I  have  a  very  tender  and  most  profound  and  pene- 
trating regard  for  my  own  obligations.  Your  rights  impose  upon  me 
corresponding  obligations,  which  shall  be  fulfilled  in  their  spirit  and  to 
the  very  letter — three-fifths  rule,  fugitive  slave  law,  equal  rights  in  the 
Territories,  and  whatsoever  else  the  Constitution  gives  you.  (Applause). 
Our  fathers  made  that  compact,  and  I  will  yield  a  cordial,  ready,  and 
not  grudging  obedience  to  every  part  of  it. 

I  have  heard  it  sometimes  said — it  was  said  here  two  years  ago,  not 
on  this  floor  certainly,  but  elsewhere — that  there  is  no  man  ti-om  the 
free  States,  North  or  West,  who  is  "  true  to  the  South."  V\iA\,  gentle- 
men, that  depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  being  true  to  the  South.  If 
you  mean  that  we,  the  Representatives  of  the  free  States  of  this  Union, 
North  and  West,  shall  sit  here  within  this  Chamber,  uttering  Southern 
sentiments,  consulting  Southern  interests,  sustaining  Southern  iustitfl- 
tions,  and  giving  Southern  votes,  reckless  of  our  own  identity  and  our 
own  self-respect,  then  I  never  was,  am  not  now,  and  never  will,  while 
the  Representative  of  a  free  State,  be  "  true  to  the  South  ;"  and  I  thank 
God  for  it.  If  that  be  what  is  meant  by  "  rottenness,"  in  the  other  end 
of  the  capitol,  commend  me  to  rottenness  all  the  days  of  my  life. 

But  if  you  mean — and  I  know  that  a  large  majority  of  you  do  mean 
— true  to  the  Constitution,  without  which  there  cannot  be,  and  ought 
not  to  be  any  Union — true  to  our  own  obligations — ready  and  sedulous 
to  fulfil  every  article  of  the  compact  which  our  fathers  made,  to  the  ex- 
tremest  inch  of  possibility,  and  yielding,  gracefully  and  willingly,  as  in 
the  earlier  and  better  days  of  the  Republic,  every  thing  which  comity 
and  good-fellowship,  not  only  as  between  foreign  States,  but  among 
brethren  demands  at  our  hands,  then  I  tell  you,  and  I  tell  the  gentleman 
14 


210  vallandigham's  speeches. 

from  Tennessee,  [Mr.  Nelson,]  that  the  great  mass  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  free  States,  and  especially  in  the  West,  and  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  of  others,  not  members  of  that  party,  are  now,  and  I 
trust  ever  will  be,  true  to  the  South. 

Allow  me  to  illustrate  my  proposition.     There  are  in  this  Hall,  as 
elsewhere,  three  classes  of  men.     The  Republican  or  anti-slavery  man — 
and  you,  gentlemen,  have,  or  have  had,  not  a  few  of  that  number  in  the 
South — asks,  whenever  a  measure  is  proposed  here,  will  it  tend  to  injure 
and  hem  in  the  institution  of  slavery  ?  or  rather,  will  it  weaken  or  offend 
the  South,  because  it  is  the  South  ?  and  he  subordinates  every  other 
consideration  to  the  great  object  of  suppressing  slavery,  and  of  warring 
on  the  South.     Upon  the  other  hand,  the  merely  Southern  man,  and 
especially  the  Southern  extremist,  asks,  how  will  this  measure  advance 
the  interests  of  slavery,  or,  rather,  how  will  it  aggrandize  the  South  as 
South  ?  and  his  vote  is  determined  or  insensibly  influenced  by  this  con- 
sideration.     There  is  yet  another,  a  third  class,  who  ask  none  of  these 
questions,  and   are    moved   by  none  of  these  considerations ;  political 
Gallios,  perhaps,  the  gentleman   from    Ohio   (Mr.  Corwin)  would  call 
them,  who  care  for  none  of  these  things.     To  that  class,  Mr.  Clerk,  I  am 
glad  to  belong.     Outside  of  my  own  State,  and  of  her  constitution,  I  am 
neither  pro-slavery  nor  anti-slavery  ;  but  maintain,  as  was  said  upon  a 
memorable  occasion,  "a  serene  indifference"  on  this  subject  between 
these  two  sections.     And  here  I  stand  upon  the  ancient,  safe,  constitu- 
tional, peaceable    ground    of  our  fathers.     For   many  years   after  the 
foundations  of  this  Republic  were  laid  by  wiser  and  better  men — pardon 
me,  gentlemen — than  I  see  around  me,  no  man  ever  thought  of  testing 
any  measure  here  by  its  effects  upon  the  institution  of  slavery.      Never 
till  the  fell  "Missouri  question"  reared    its  horrid  front,  begotten  in 
New  England,  and  brought  forth  in  New  York,  was  slavery  made  the 
subject  of  partisan  and  sectional  controversy  within  this  capitol.     And 
we  had  peace  in  the  land  in  those  days,  and  patriotism  and  humanity 
and  religion  and  benevolence  ;  faith  and  good  works.     We  neither  had, 
nor  demanded  then,  an  anti-slavery  Constitution,  an  anti-slavery  Bible, 
nor  an  anti-slavery  God ;  but  the  Constitution  of  the  land,  the  Bible  of 
our  fiithers,  and  that  great  and  tremendous  Being,  who,  from  eternity, 
has  ruled  in  the  armies  of  heaven,  and  among  the  children  of  men. 

Then,  sir,  I  am  not  a  Northern  man,  nor  yet  a  Southern  man  ;  but  I 
am  a  Western  Man,  by  birth,  in  habit,  by  education  ;  and  although 
still  a  United  States  man  with  United  States  principles,  yet  within,  and 
subordinate  to  the  Constitution,  am  wholly  devoted  to  Western  interests. 
Sir,  tliis  is  no  new  enunciation  of  mine  here.  I  proclaimed  it  upon  this 
floor  one  year  ago,  and  now  congratulate  myself  and  the  West  in  having 
found  so  able  and  eloquent  a  coadjutor  in  the  person  of  the  distinguished 


THERE    IS    A    WEST.  211 

gentleman  from  the  seventh  district  of  Ohio  (Mr.  Corwin).  Sir,  I  am  o 
and  from  the  West ;  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  of  the  free 
States  of  that  valley,  seated  in  queenly  majesty  at  the  head  of  the  basin 
of  that  mighty  river ;  yet  one  in  interest,  and  one  by  the  bonds  of 
nature,  stronger  than  hooks  of  steel,  with  every  other  State  in  that  val- 
ley, full  as  it  is,  of  population  and  riches,  and  exultant  now  in  the  hour 
of  her  approaching  dominion.  Seat  yourself,  denizen  of  the  sterile  and 
narrow,  but  beautiful  hills  and  valleys  of  New  England,  and  you,  too,  of 
the  great  cities  of  the  North,  whose  geography  and  travel  are  circum- 
scribed by  the  limits  of  a  street  railroad  ;  seat  ypurselves  upon  the  sum- 
mit of  the  AUeghanies,  and  behold  spread  out  before  you  a  country 
stretching  from  the  Alleghany  to  the  Rocky  Mountains — from  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  to  the  Canada  frontier — with  limitless  plains,  boundless  forests, 
fifteen  States,  a  hundred  rivers,  ten  thousand  cities,  towns,  and  villages, 
and  twelve  millions  of  people.  Such  a  vision  no  man  ever  saw ;  no,  not 
even  Adam,  when,  in  the  newness  and  grandeur  of  God-made  manht)od, 
he  stood  upon  the  topmost  hill  of  Paradise,  and  looked  down  upon  a 
whole  hemisphere  of  the  yet  unpeopled  world.  That,  sir,  is  my  country ; 
if  I  may  speak  it  without  profanity,  God's  own  country ;  yet,  in  this  war 
of  sections,  I  am  of  the  free  States  of  that  valley. 

Mr.  Clerk,  when  I  came  to  this  city  two  years  ago,  I  brought  with 
me  an  intense  nationality  ;  but  I  had  been  here  only  a  little  while  till  I 
learned  that  a  man  without  a  section  to  cling  to,  was  reckoned  but  as  a 
mere  cipher  in  the  account ;  and  from  that  hour,  subordinate  always 
to  the  Constitution,  I  became  and  am  a  western  sectionalist,  and  so 
shall  continue  to  the  day  of  my  death.     I,  too,  propose  with  the  Leather 
Stocking  of  the   "Prairie,"  to  fight  fire  with  fire.       I  learned  here,  Mr. 
Clerk,  that  while  there  was  a  North  and  a  South,  there  was  no  West. 
I  found  her  individuality  sunk  in  the  North.     I  saw  that  you  of  New 
York  and  New  England  entertained  a  profound  respect  for  the  citizen  of 
South  Carolina  or  Georgia,  slaveholder  though  he  might  be,  because  he 
.  was  east  of  the  AUeghanies  ;  and  that  you  of  Georgia  and  South  Caro- 
lina  reciprocated  the  good  opinion,  abolition  aside,  because  the  New 
Yorker  and  the  Yankee  lived  very  near  to  the  rising  of  the  sun  ;  while 
tbe  Western,man  was  held  to  be  a  sort  of  outside  barbarian,  very  useful 
to  count  in  a  trial  of  numerical  strength,  but  of  no  value  for  any  other 
purpose.     We  of  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi  are  perpetually  ig- 
nored.    Sir,  if  all  this  were  done  of  studied  purpose,  it  would  at  least  be 
tolerable  ;  but  not  so,  there  is  no  design  in  it.     It  is  a  cool,  silent,  per- 
sistent, unobtrusive,  but  most  offensive  disparagement.    Gentlemen,  you 
do  not  know  us.       It  is  but  a  few  months  ago  that  a  great  paper  in  the 
city  of  New  York  spoke  of  Judge  D.ouglas  as  attempting — and  it  was 
in  the  very  capital  of  the  State — "  to  impose  his  absurd  theories  upon 


212  vallandigham's  speeches. 

the  honest  foresters  of  Ohio."  And  about  the  same  time  another  great 
paper  in  the  North  referred  to  Governor  Chase  as  a  public  man  of 
merely  "  provincial  reputation." 

Let  not  the  gentleman  from  the  Mansfield  district  (Mr.  Sherman)  flat- 
ter himself  that  he  is  to  be  an  exception.  No,  Sir  ;  he  sees  the  parting 
rays  of  the  setting  sun  too  late  in  the  day.  A  distinguished  predecessor 
of  his  attained  once  the  same  point  of  greatness,  but  only  to  be  let  down 
gently  in  favor  of  Cape  Cod.  Do  not  deceive  yourself.  You  were  only 
put  forward  to  be  killed  off;  you  were  merely  detailed  as  a  follorn  hope, 
to  be  shot  down  in  front  of  that  Malakoff  which  yon  never  will  capture. 
Oh  no !  though  two  thousand  miles  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  you 
are  quite  too  far  West.  Your  distinguished  colleague  from  the  seventh 
district  (Mr.  Corwin)  is  gazing  now  wistfully  through  a  spy-glass  in  the 
direction  whither  your  eyes  are  turned ;  but  he,  alas,  any  more  than 
you,  will  never  wake  up  from  that  delicious  revery  in  which  he  now  sits 
buRed,  to  realize  that — 

'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view,  , 

And  robes  the  Speaker's  tribune  to  its  radiant  hue. 

We  did,  indeed,  gentlemen,  once  elect  a  Western  President :  but 
him  you  killed  in  a  month — and  a  Southwestern  President,  too,  and  he 
survived  you  but  fifteen  months. 

But,  gentlemen  of  the  West,  the  dayspring  of  our  deliverance  begins 
to  dawn.  Let  us  rejoice.  The  long  period  of  our  minority  is  about  to 
terminate.  Within  the  Union,  after  the  next  census,  we  of  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley  will  hold  in  our  own  hands  the  political  power  and  the 
destinies  of  this  country,  and  we  will  administer  them  for  the  benefit 
of  the  whole  country.  Tlie  day  of  our  political  independence  is  right 
now,  while  I  speak.  If  you  of  the  North  and  Southeast  will  conspire, 
as  for  the  last  seventy  years,  to  control  the  power  and  patronage  of  this 
Government  for  your  own  benefit,  we  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  will 
combine  to  rescue  them  from  your  hands.  If  you  of  the  whole  North 
will  continue  your  sectional  warfare  upon  the  whole  South,  know  ye 
that  we  of  the  Northwest  hold  the  political  balance  of  power  between 
you,  and  that  we  will  use  it  to  crush  out  and  annihilate  forever  the  fanat- 
icism and  treason  which  are  threatening  now  to  overspread  the  whole 
North,  and  very  speedily  to  destroy  this  Rcpiiblic.  We  will  be  ignored 
no  longer.  And  here  let  me  warn  the  Republican  representatives  from 
the  West,  that  they  have  loaned  themselves  too  long  already  to  this 
proud  and  domineering  North.  You  permit  yourselves  to  be  identified 
with  the  North,  and  to  make  common  cause  with  her  against  slavery. 
Cui  bono  ?  Not  yours  ;  ah,  no  !  .  You  help  to  win  the  fight ;  you  make 
good  soldiers — excellent  food  for  powder — but  your  Northern  officers 


THEEE   IS   A   WEST.  213 

and  Northern  masters  will  divide  the  spoils.  When  William  H.  Seward 
threatens  the  South  with  the  power  and  domination  of  the  North,  he 
means  you ;  but  when  he  would  distribute  office  and  patronage,  he  will 
know  no  West.  Some  of  you  dream  that  your  Governor  Chase  will  be 
the  candidate  of  the  Republican  party  for  the  next  Presidency.  Miser- 
able infatuation  !  Cease,  then,  I  beseech  you,  this  unmanly  vassalage  to 
the  North.  If  you  will  not  hearken  to  the  voice  of  patriotism,  listen, 
at  least,  to  the  demands  of  independence  and  self-respect.  If  you  will 
be  sectionalists,  lay  aside  this  pestilent  fanaticism  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  which  you  borrow  servilely  from  the  clergy,  lecturers,  and  other 
demagogues  of  the  North,  and  which  they  use  for  the  purpose  of  their 
own  aggrandizement — lay  it  aside,  and  be  Western  sectionalists.  Talk 
not  to  me  about  humanity  and  benevolence.  I  have  as  profound  and 
delicate  an  appreciation  of  them  as  you  can  have,  but  I  will  not  be 
insulted  with  the  miserable  pretence.  Are  there  no  objects  of  charity 
in  your  own  midst — no  poor,  no  sick,  no  lame,  no  halt,  no  blind,  no 
widows  and  orphans — to  whose  necessities  you  may  administer,  and 
thus  find  vent  for  that  abounding  river  of  humanity  which  wells  up  and 
flows  out  from  the  fountain  of  your  hearts  ?  Pardon  me,  but  I  despise 
and  contemn  your  vassalage  to  the  North  as  much  as  you  can  contemn 
and  despise  any  man's  servility  to  the  South. 

And  now,  one  word  to  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  (Mr.  Hick- 
man), who  took  refuge,  the  other  day,  in  the  "  engine-room "  of  the 
left  side  of  this  Chamber,  whence,  through  new  and  rudely-constructed 
port-holes,  to  send  his  missiles  whistling  into  the  camp  which  he  so 
lately  deserted.  I  admire  his  discretion — the  better  part  of  valor.  Sir 
he  spoke  about  precipitating  eighteen  millions  of  people  upon  eight 
millions.  Whence  does  he  propose  to  get  his  eighteen  millions  ?  Did 
he  mean  to  include  us  of  the  Northwest?  Does  he  imaoiine  that  we 
are  militia-men  to  be  drafted,  or  conscripts  to  be  enrolled,  and  march 
forth  at  the  sound  of  his  drum,  or  to  the  notes  of  his  bugle  ?  I  tell  him 
that,  if  he  means  to  raise  the  black  standard  of  internecine  war  upon  the 
South,  he  must  find  his  recruits  nearer  home. 

Mr.  Florence  (in  his  seat).     He  will  not  find  them  there.     (Applause  in  the 
galleries.) 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  I  rejoice  to  hear  it.  But  I  tell  the  gentleman 
further,  that,  if  the  Territories  of  this  Union  are  to  become  the  subject 
of  controversy  after  dissolution,  we  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  propose 
to  keep  them  ourselves,  and  then  to  make  fair  and  honest  partition  with 
each  other. 

I  approach  now,  Mr.  Clerk,  a  painful  and  most  difficult  subject — 
periculosae  plenum  opus  alece.  A  word  which,  for  very  many  years  after 
the  organization   of  this  Government,  no  man  ever  dared  to  breathe 


214  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

within  this  capitol,  has  now  become  as  familiar  as  the  most  ordinary 
words  of  salutation.  Nut  a  day  nor  an  hour  passes,  but  tlie  hoarse 
croaking  of  this  raven  is  heard,  piercing  the  fearful  hollow  of  our  earsj 
with  mourning  and  dirge-hke  wail,  the  "never  more"  of  the  Union 
of  these  States.  Sir,  in  this  war  of  sections,  standing  here  between  the 
living  and  the  dead,  we,  the  Democratic  representatives  of  the  West, 
and  I,  as  one  of  that  number,  have  a  duty  to  perform,  which,  in  all 
humbleness,  but  in  all  faithfulness,  shall  be  fulhlled  But  too  many  of 
you  of  the  North  are  striving  with  might  and  main  to  force  the  South 
out  of  this  Union ;  and  too  many  of  you  of  the  South  are  most  ai*xious 
to  be  forced  out.  Do  not  deny  it,  either  of  you.  I  know  it.  Sir,  if 
any  member  should  rise  here  and  tell  me  that  there  are  no  disunionists 
in  the  South,  could  I  believe  it  ?  And  when  the  gentleman  from  New 
York  (Mr.  Clark),  or  any  one  else,  would  persuade  the  South  that  there 
are  no  Abolitionists,  or  disunionists,  in  the  North  or  the  West,  he  only 
insults  the  intelligence  of  the  men  upon  whom  he  would  impose.  Sir, 
if  any  colleague  of  mine,  or  any  other  gentleman  from  the  free  States 
upon  this  floor,  will  so  far  forget  the  solemn  responsibilities  of  his  office, 
in  the  midst  of  the  great  and  most  alarming  dangers  wherewith  we  are 
at  this  moment  encompassed,  and  unintentionally,  of  course,  misrepre- 
sent the  true  state  of  public  sentiment  and  public  action  in  the  North 
and  thQ  Northern  portions  of  the  West,  I,  at  least,  will  not  consent  to 
be  a  party  to  the  deception.  I  tell  gentlemen  of  the  South  that  the 
doctrines  of  Hale,  Banks,  Seward,  Giddings,  Chase,  Lincoln,  and,  above 
all,  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  are  the  doctrines  of  a  large  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  North,  and  of  a  powerful  and,  for  all  efficient  pur- 
poses of  political  action,  a  controlling  minority,  just  now  in  the  West. 
One  column  of  editorial  in  the  recognized  organs  of  the  Republican  party 
of  Ohio,  circulating  every  day  among  the  masses  of  the  people,  penetra- 
ting into  the  homes  and  hearts  of  every  family,  acting  and  reacted  upon 
by  the  public  opinion  which  they  help  to  create,  and  by  which  the  pub- 
lic men  of  this  country  are  set  up,  or  pulled  down,  at  the  ballot-box,  is 
better  evidence  of  the  true  Republican  sentiment  of  Ohio  than  a  t4icus- 
and  spe-eches  from  the  distinguished  member  for  the  seventh  District  of 
that  State  (Mr.  Corwin).  Sir,  I  listened  the  other  day,  as  I  ahvay  listen, 
with  very  great  pleasure,  to  the  genial  and  gushing  eloquence  from  the 
Hps  of  that  gentleman,  touched,  as  they  are,  as  with  a  live  coal  from  the 
altar  of  oratory.  In  the  sentiments  which  he  uttered  here,  there  is 
much,  very  much,  which  meets  my  hearty  concurrence  ;  but  I  regret  that 
truth  and  candor  compel  me  to  say  that  he  does  not  represent  the  opin- 
ions and  sentiments  of  the  party  to  which  he  belongs.  He  claims,  in- 
deed, the  leadership  of  that  party.  Pardon  me — he  is  not  only  not  a 
eader,   but  not  even  a  respectful  follower   of  the  Republican  party  in 


THERE    13    A    WEST.  215 

tluit  State.  (Applause  in  the  galleries.)  Kentuckian  as  he  is  by  birth, 
iiobleiuaii  by  nature — patriot  as  he  is,  and  Whig  as  he  once  was,  I  know 
that  he  never  will  consent  to  "  guard  the  baggage"  of  that  vandal  host. 
Yet  am  I  sorry  to  say  that,  to  him,  more  than  to  any  other  man  in  the 
State,  the  Republican  party  to-day  are  indebted  for  their  political  su- 
premacy in  Ohio.  He  it  was,  who,  without  power  in  his  own  party,  yet 
controlled,  at  the  lafe  election,  the  fifty  thousand  conservative  voters  of 
that  State  who  are  not  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  misled  them  into 
the  support  of  an  organization  and  of  principles  with  which  he  has  no 
real  sympathy  at  all.  He  went  into  the  Republican  party  to  control  it 
for  good — but  he  was  only  as  a  straw  before  the  Avhirlwind.  He  finds 
now  a  barren  sceptre  in  his  gripe ;  and  let  me,  with  great  respect,  re- 
mind him  that  it  is  not  conservative  speeches  which  are  needed  here  to 
save  us,  but  conservative  votes  at  home.  Certainly,  the  vast  majority  of 
the  people  of  Ohio,  of  all  parties,  are  at  heart  opposed  to  insurrection 
and  disunion ;  but  I  tell  the  gentleman  that,  if  he  would  conquer  aboli- 
tion and  sectionalism,  he  must  fight  them  at  the  ballot-box. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  do  not  propose  to  follow  the  gentleman  into  a  discussion 
of  the  local  politics  of  Ohio.  I  resolved,  a  good  many  years  ago,  to 
make  no  speech  within  a  legislative  assembly  fit  only  to  be  spoken  upon 
the  "  stump ;"  and  to  that  resolution  I  propose  steadily  to  adhere.  But, 
inasmuch  as  the  mere  partisan  politics  of  my  State  have  already  been 
drawn  into  a  debate  here,  a  passing  remark  may  not  be  inappropriate 
from  me  as  a  Representative,  in  part,  from  that  State — though,  in  truth, 
I  can  add  little  to  what  has  been  fitly,  strongly,  eloquently  spoken  by 
the  gentleman  from  the  twelfth  District  (Mr.  Cox). 

Something  has  been  said — more,  I  understand,  is  to  follow — in  re- 
gard to  the  soundness  of  the  Democratic  party  in  Ohio,  and  in  other 
States  of  the  Union.  Sir,  I  will  spare  gentlemen  all  trouble  upon  that  point. 
The  Democratic  party  in  Ohio,  some  years  ago,  was  not  sound,  as  men 
count  soundness  now.  You  need  not  go  back  to  the  records,  and  re- 
produce them  here.  Open  confession  is  good  for  the  soul,  and  I  make 
it.  I  speak  the  more  freely,  because  I  think — and  there  are  hostile 
witnesses  here  present  to  attest  it — that  my  own  record,  from  the  very 
beginning  of  this  whole  controversy  concerning  slavery  as  a  political 
question,  is  as  unimpeachable  as  the  record  df  any  man  in  the  North  or 
the  West,  and,  I  may  add,  the  South,  too ;  fur  let  me  admonish  gen- 
tlemen from  that  section  that  many  of  the  people  of  the  free  States  were 
for  a  good  while  misled  by  the  precepts,  if  not  the  practice,  of  some  of 
the  earlier,  and  the  later  fathers,  too,  of  the  Southern  political  church. 
A  little  charity,  I  pray  you,  upon  this  subject.  The  Democratic  party 
of  Ohio,  very  much  after  the  fashion  described  by  the  gentleman  from 
the  seventh  District  (Mr.  Corwin),  adopted,  in  1848,  a  certain  resolu- 


216  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

tion,  in  -which  tlicy  denounced  slavery  in  tlie  abstract,  and,  with  valor- 
ous earnestness,  declared  that  the  people  of  Ohio  would  use  all  power 
clearly  given  in  the  constitutional  compact  to  "  eradicate,"  tear  up  slavery 
by  the  roots;  hiU — there  is  much  virtue  in  "but,"  as  well  as  "if" — 
they  further  resolved,  with  refresliing  consistency,  protesting  the  highest 
regard  for  the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the  rights  of  all  the  States, 
that  the  Democracy  of  Ohio  were  of  opinion  that -no  power  was  con- 
ferred by  the  constitutional  compact  to  institute  any  process  of  eradica- 
tion at  all.  Sir,  I  am  not  here  to  commend  the  superior  honesty  of  such 
a  platform.  The  gentleman  (Mr.  Corwin),  who  is  well  posted  and  of 
mature  years,  has  explained  luminously  how  these  things  are  done,  even 
in  Republican  conventions ;  but  I  will  not  disingenuously  pretend — of 
course,  I  have  no  allusion  to  my  colleague — that  these  resolutions  did 
not  at  that  time  express  the  sentiments  of  the  Democracy  of  my  State. 
I  think  that,  so  far  as  they  were  supposed  to  be  anti-slavery  in  their 
character,  they  did  express  both  the  opinions  and  the  feelings  of  a  very 
large  majority  of  the  people  of  the  State.  Sir,  I  was  a  member  of  that 
convention,  and  of  the  committee  on  resolutions, -and  voted  many  times 
in  committee,  during  a  protracted  session  of  two  days,  against  anv  and 
every  expression  of  opinion  upon  the  question  of  slavery  in  any  form. 
Like  my  colleague,  I  was  overpowered ;  like  him,  I  endeavored  to  make 
the  best  of  it,  seeking  consolation  in  the  second  and  sound  part  of  the 
resolution,  and  whiling  away  my  idle  hours  in  the  delicate  task  of  recon- 
ciling the  two  branches  with  each  other.  My  success  in  this  somewhat 
difficult  work  was  just  about  equal  to  the  success  of  the  gentleman  (Mr. 
Corwin)  who  undertook  a  similar  contract  here,  the  other  day.  But, 
Mr.  Clerk,  at  every  subsequent  convention  I  exerted  myself  to  the  utmost 
to  procure  a  rescission  of  these  resolutions ;  and,  finally,  in  January,  1856, 
they  were  rescinded,  and  a  sound  platform  adopted  in  their  stead.  From 
that  hour  the  Democratic  party  has  steadily  gained  strength.  I  pass 
by  the  election  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  Senate,  in  1848,  the  refusal  by  a 
State  Convention  to  indorse  the  Baltimore  platform,  in  1853,  and  other 
unsound  things,  in  faith  or  in  practice,  whereof  the  Democracy  of  my 
State  were  guilty  in  times  past.  "  Let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead." 
Ernst  ist  das  Leben.  Our  business  is  to  grapple  manfiilly  with  the  liv- 
ing realities  of  the  present  moment.  Sir,  in  my  judgment,  the  wisest 
man  that  ever  lived  was  the  author  of  the  statute  of  limitations ;  all 
things  adjust  themselves  equitably  in  periods  of  just  about  six  years. 
Politicians,  indeed,  in  later  times,  require,  and,  perhaps,  are  entitled  to 
a  shorter  limitation.  No  man's  record  ought  to  be  revived  or  called  in 
question  after  the  lapse  of  six  months. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  present  state  of  parties  and  of  public 
sentiment  in  the  North  and  West.     Sir,  I  do  not  propose  to  speak  at 


c 


THERE   IS   A    WEST.  217 

any  length  upon  this  subject.  The  events  are  recent,  and  no  public  man 
anywhere  can  have  failed  tx)  obaervc  them.  It  is  folly  to  deny  that,  all 
througli  the  North,  and  in  many  portions  of  the  West,  distinct  and  very 
earnest  sympathy  has  been  exhibited  for  John  Brown  in  his  recent  in- 
surrectionary and  murderous  invasion  of  Virginia  ;  and  that,  too,  not  by 
the  vulgar  and  low,  but  by  men  very  high  in  political,  social,  and  re- 
ligious positions.  Funeral  processions,  halls  draped  in  raonrning,  tolling 
of  bells,  sermons,  eulogies,  orations,  public  meetings,  adjournment  of 
courts  of  justice,  attempted  adjournment  of  Senates  and  Houses  of  Rep- 
resentatives, and  all  the  other  usual  insignia  of  public  sorrow,  bestowed 
only  hitherto  upon  the  great  and  the  good,  the  patriots,  the  heroes,  and 
martyrs  of  the  world — all  these  tributes,  and  more,  have  been  paid  to 
the  memory  of  a  murderer  and  felon.  Even  in  my  owu  native  State,  and 
in  a  part  of  my  own  district,  I  lament  to  say  that  these  sad  evidences  of 
a  corrupted  public  sentiment  have  been  exhibited.  In  Cleveland,  fertile 
in  revolutionary  conventions,  in  Akron,  in  Cincinnati,  and  elsewhere,  in  , 
public  assemblages,  and  by  other  means  equally  public  and  significant, 
the  sympathy  of  thousands  has  been  expressed.  Sir,  it  is  vain  to  attempt 
to  conceal  what  all  this  means.  There*is  a  public  sentiment  behind  it  all, 
or  it  never  would  be  tolerated.  Thirty  years  ago,  John  Brown,  hung 
like  a  felon,  would  have  been  buried  like  a  dog. 

Allusion  has  been  made  also  to  the  Union  meetinnrs  held,  or  to  be 
held,  in  the  great  cities  of  the  North.  Sir,  I  would  not  abate  one  jot  or 
tittle  from  the  ti'ue  value,  least  of  all,  from  the  patriotism  of  these  as- 
semblages. When  public  meetings  run  along  with  public  sentiment, 
they  are  powerful  to  mould  and  to  give  it  efficiency  ;  but  when  they  do 
not  beat  responsive  to  the  popular  heart,  they  are  of  no  value.  No  ; 
one  single  page  of  election  returns  is  worth  more,  as  an  index  of  real 
public  sentiment,  than  all  the  Unios  resolves  which  shall  be  passed  be- 
tween this  and  the  4th  of  March,  1861.  Let  no  man  be  deceived.  If 
the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Tennessee  (Mr.  Nelson)  be  sincere — 
and  I  know  that  he  is — in  believing  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
of  the  free  States  are  opposed  to  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question  in 
any  form,  and  are  ready  to  strike  hands  with  any  party  which  will  put 
it  down  forever  ;  if  he  really  thinks  that  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  North  sympathize  with  John  Brown,  or  yield  assent — a  cor- 
dial and  working  assent — to  the  doctrines  of  William  II,  Seward,  the 
"  irrepressible  conflict"  included,  full  as  it  is  of  insurrection,  treason,  and 
murder  ;  if  he  believes  that,  without  the  strong  arm  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, powerfully  and  in  good  faith  stretched  forth,  fugitive  slaves 
could  be  recaptured  in  one-half  the  free  States  of  this  Union,  under  any 
law  of  Congress,  I  can  only  say,  that  he  has  the  mild  virtue  of  an  honest 
heart — most  marvellous  credulity.     Sir,  I  entertain  for  that  gentleman 


218  vallandigham's  speeches. 

the  very  highest  respect,  hut  he  must  allow  mc  to  say  that,  aside  from 
that  portion  of  his  remarks,  the  other  day,  which  breathed  so  much  of 
earnest,  sincere,  and  eloquent  eulogy  upon  the  Union — one  such  speech, 
blinding  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  the  free  States  to  the  real  public  sen- 
timent at  the  South,  does  more  thus  to  keep  alive  the  flames  of  civil 
discord  between  the  South  and  the  North  and  AY  est,  than  a  hundred 
speeches,  vehement  and  impassioned  though  they  may  be,  of  the  gen- 
tleman from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  Keitt).  Sir,  when  a  member  of  this 
llouse,  of  fine  personal  appearance,  of  sonorous  voice,  of  classic  educa- 
tion, and  approved  rhetorical  excellence,  tells  us,  with  a  magnificence  of 
rhythm  which  regurgitates  through  these  aisles,  peals  along  these  gal- 
leries, pierces  the  ceiling,  and  loses  itself  amid  the  columns  and  scaffold- 
ing of  the  unfinished  dome  of  the  capitol,  that  he  will  shatter  this  Re- 
public "  from  turret  to  foundation  stone,"  we  are  apt  to  understand  that 
he  is  executincr  a  errand  rhetorical  fusfue,  and  that  he  is  not  half  so  much 
in  earnest  as  he  would  have  us  imagine.  But  when  a  gentleman,  ma- 
ture in  years,  with  a  cold  logic,  a  calm  demeanor,  but  a  sincere  heart 
and  earnest  purpose,  tells  us,  in  the  midst  of  invasion  and  murder — 
the  lec'itiraate  and  inevitable  fruits  of  the  "  iiTepressible  conflict,"  which 
has  been  proclaimed  against  his  own  section — that  he  is  not  alarmed, 
and  believes  that  no  mischief  is  intended,  we  only  understand  that  he 
invites  as:2:ression. 

Sir,  I  am  this  moment  reminded,  by  the  appearance  of  the  gentleman 
before  me  (Mr.  Briggs),  that  I  need  no  better  illustration  of  the  melan- 
choly change  in  public  sentiment,  at  the  North,  within  the  past  few 
years.  Here  he  ^its,  upon  the  only  national  side  of  this  chamber,  sole 
exemplar  of  the  "  lost  politics"  of  the  Whig  party,  faithful  among  the 
faithless,  only  he  ;  sole  representative  of  the  flag  of  our  country,  solitary 
and  alone,  e  pluribus  unum.  (Laughter.)  Sir,  does  not  all  this  mean 
something? 

Bat  I  will  pursue  this  subject  no  further.  1  find  no  pleasure  in  it. 
I  have  said,  and  I  think  the  dullest  among  us  cannot  fail  to  discern  it 
now,  that  there  is  danger,  great  and  most  imminent  danger,  of  a  speedy 
disruption  of  the  Union  of  these  States.  Too  many  of  you  of  the  South 
desire  it,  and  but  too  many  of  3'ou  of  the  North  are  either  striving  for, 
or  reckless  whether  it  comes  or  not. 

Sir,  I  will  not  consent  that  an  honest  and  conscientious  opposition  to 
slavery  forms  any  part  of  the  motives  of  the  leaders  of  the  Republican 
party.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  Abolition  agitation,  it  may  have 
been  otherwise,  but  not  so  to-day.  This  whole  controversy  has  now 
become  but  one  of  mere  sectionalism — a  war  for  political  domination, 
in  which  slaverv  performs  but  the  part,  of  the  letter  x  in  an  algebraic 
equation,  and  is  used  now,  in  the  political  algebra  of  the  day,  only  to 


THEKE   IS    A   WEST.  219 

work  out  the  problem  of  disunion.  It  was  admitted,  in  1820,  in  the 
beginning,  by  Rufus  King,  who  hurled  the  first  thunderbolt  in  the  Mis- 
souri controversy,  to  be  but  a  question  of  sectional  power  and  control. 
To-day  it  exists,  and  is  fostered  and  maintained,  because  the  North  has, 
or  believes  that  she  has,  the  power  and  numbers  and  strength  and 
wealth,  and  every  other  element  which  constitutes  a  State,  superior  to 
you  of  the  South.  Power  has  always  been  arrogant,  domineering, 
■wrathful,  inexorable,  fierce,  denying  that  constitutions  and  laws  were 
made  for  it.  Power  now,  and  here,  is  just  what  power  has  been  every- 
where, and  in  every  age.  But,  gentlemen  of  the  North,  you  who  igno- 
rantly  or  wittingly  are  hurrying  this  Republic  to  its  destruction,  you 
who  tell  the  South  to  go  out  of  the  Union  if  she  dare,  and  you  will 
bring  her  back  by  force,  or  leave  her  to  languish  and  to  perish  under 
your  overshadowing  greatness,  did  it  never  occur  to  you  that  when  this 
most  momentous  but  most  disastrous  of  all  the  events  which  history 
shall  ever  to  the  end  of  time  record,  shall  have  been  brought  about,  the 
West,  the  great  West,  which  you  now  coolly  reckon  yours  as  a  province, 
yours  as  a  fief  of  your  vast  empire,  may  choose,  of  her  own  sovereign 
good-will  and  pleasure,  in  the  exercise  of  a  popular  sovereignty,  which 
will  demand,  and  will  have  non-intervention,  to  set  up  for  herself?  Did 
you  never  dream  of  a  Western  Confederacy  ?  Did  that  horrid  phan- 
tom never  flit  across  you  in  visions  of  the  night,  when  deep  sleep  falls 
upon  men  ?  Sir,  we  have  fed  you,  we  have  clothed  you,  we  have  paid 
tribute  to,  and  enriched  you,  for  now  these  sixty  years ;  we  it  is  who 
have  built  up  your  marts  of  commerce ;  we  it  is  who  have  caused  your 
manufacturing  establishments  to  flourish.  Who  made  Boston  ?  What 
built  up  New  York,  till  now,  like  Tyre  of  old,  she  sits  queen  of  the  seas, 
and  her  merchant-princes  and  traffickers  are  among  the  honorable  of  the 
earth?  The  cotton  of  the  South,  and  the  produce  of  the  West. 
Maintain  this  Union,  and  you  will  have  them  still.  Dissolve  this  Union, 
if  you  dare ;  send  California  and  Oregon  to  the  Pacific,  compel  the 
South  into  a  southern  confederacy,  force  us  of  the  West  into  a  western 
confederacy,  and  then  tell  me  what  position  would  you  assume  among 
the  powers  of  the  earth  ?  Where  then  would  be  your  pride  and  arro- 
gance, your  trade  and  business,  your  commerce  and  your  dominion  ? 
Look  at  the  map  spread  out  before  you.  Behold  yourselves,  as  Mr. 
Webster  said  of  Austria,  "  a  mere  patch  upon  the  earth's  surface." 
And,  gentlemen  of  New  England,  let  me  ask  you,  What  if  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  and  New  York  should  refuse  to  go  with  you  ?  They 
may  refuse.  You  are  a  peculiar  people.  (Laughter.)  I  cannot  say 
God's  peculiar  people ;  for  you  have  dethroned  Jehovah,  and  set  up  a 
new  and  anti-slavery  god  of  your  own ;  and  before  one  year,  you  will 
inaugurate  the  statue  of  John  Brown  in  the  place  where  the  bronzed 


220  VALLAXDIGHAM's    SPEECUE8. 

image  of  Webster  now  stands.  (Applause  and  hisses.)  But,  suppose 
these  three  States  refuse  your  fellowship.  Then  would  be  fulfilled  the 
prophecy,  uttered  many  years  ago,  of  the  re-annexation  of  New  England 
to  the  British  crown. 

I  know  well,  Mr.  Clerk,  that  within  the  Union,  we  of  the  "West  are 
now,  and,  so  far  as  business  and  trade  are  concerned,  must  ever  rcunain, 
tributaries  to  the  North.  You  have  made  us  so  by  that  magnificent 
network  of  railroads  which  stretches  now  from,  the  Atlantic  to  and 
beyond  the  JjLississippi.  But  be  not  deceived.  That  "  vast  inland  sea" 
is  mare  nostrum — it  is  our  Atlantic  ocean.  Once  cut  oflf  from  the  power- 
ful and  controlling  ties  of  a  United  Government,  aliens  and  foreigners 
to  each  other,  with  police  and  espionage  and  armed  force  at  every  depot 
upon  the  frontiers,  nature,  stronger  than  man,  would  reassume  her  rights 
and  her  supremacy.  You  made  the  railroad  and  the  telegraph,  but  God 
Almighty  made  the  Mississippi  and  her  hundred  tributaries. 

Is  it  not,  I  appeal  to  you,  better  then  for  you  of  the  North,  better  for 
you  of  the  South,  better  for  us  of  the  West,  better  for  all  of  us,  that 
this  Union  shall  endure  forever?  Sir,  I  am  for  the  Union  as  it  is,  and 
the  Constitution  as  it  is.  I  am  against  disunion  now,  and  forever; 
against  disunion,  whether  for  its  own  sake  or  for  the  sake  of  any  thing 
else,  equal,  independent,  constitutional  liberty  alone  excepted.  Do  you 
ask  me  when  the  hour  for  disunion  will  come  ?  I  tell  you  never,  never, 
while  it  is  possible  to  avert  it ;  never,  while  we  can  have,  within  the 
Union,  the  just  constitutional  rights  which  the  Union  was  first  made  to 
secure;  never  certainly,  till  the  hour  shall  come  wherein  to  vindicate  the 
glorious  right  ot  revolution,  I  speak  not  of  the  abstract  right  of  seces- 
sion. Do  you  ask  me  when  that  hour  will  come  ?  I  cannot  tell  you. 
Of  that  every  State  and  every  people  must  judge  for  themselves,  before 
God  and  the  great  tribunal  of  history.  Our  fathers,  in  their  day  and 
generation,  judged  of  it  for  themselves  in  our  great  Revolution.  There, 
gentlemen,  is  one  precedent,  at  least,  hallowed  by  success,  and  canonized 
in  the  world's  history.  American  citizens  dare  not  call  it  in  question. 
I  commend  it  to  you.  Study  it ;  ponder  over  it ;  profit  by  it.  I  know, 
indeed,  that  it  has  been  sometimes  said  that  our  fathers  went  to  war 
about  a  preamble,  and  fought  seven  long  years  to  vindicate  a  principle. 
But,  gentlemen,  I  am  not  sure  that  there  is  not,  in  all  this,  somewhat  of 
the  flourish  of  rhetoric ;  a  little  of  the  "  glittering  generalities"  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  I  fear  it  may  not  be  safe  for  you  to 
follow  that  precedent  too  closely. 

Do  you  ask  me  whether  the  election  of  an  anti-slavery,  sectional, 
Republican  president,  upon  a  sectional  platform,  pledged  to  administer 
the  Government  for  sectional  purposes,  would,  per  se,  be  a  justifiable 
cause  cf  disunion  ?     I  cannot  tell  you.     But  I  do  tell  you,  as  a  Western 


THERE    IS    A    WEST.  221 

man,  arid  I  tell  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee  (Mr.  Nelson),  that,  when 
A'ou  of  the  South  shall  have  attained  the  numerical  power  ami  strength 
in  this  Union,  and  shAll  then  organize  a  Southern  party,  on  a  Southern 
basis,  and,  under  the  forms  of  the  Constitution,  shall  elect  a  Southern 
President,  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  all  the  vast  power  and  patron- 
age and  influence  of  the  Government,  by  action  or  non-action,  for  the 
advancement  of  Southern  interests,  and,  above  all,  for  the  purpose  of 
extending  slavery  into  States  now  free,  with  the  design  of  making  them 
all  slave  States,  I  will  meet  yon  as  the  Irish  patriot  would  have  met  the 
invaders  of  Ireland — with  the  sword  in  one  hand,  and  a  torch  in  the 
other;  dispute  every  inch  of  ground,  bum  every  blade  of  grass,  till  the 
last  intrenchraent  of  independence  shall  be  my  grave.  (Applause.)  I 
will  not  wait  for  any  overt  act.  What !  Do  I  not  know  that  fire  will 
burn,  that  frost  will  congeal,  that  steel  and  poison  will  do  their  work 
of  destruction  to  the  human  system,  that  I  shall  await  the  slow  process 
of  experiment  to  ascertain  their  natural  and  inevitable  effects  ?  Never 
— never  !     Exjyerimentum  in  vili  corpore. 

These,  Mr.  Clerk,  are  no  new  doctrines  in  the  country  wlience  I 
come.  Stronger  sentiments,  if  possible,  were  uttered  here  upon  this 
floor,  ten  years  ago,  by  a  distinguished  predecessor  of  mine,  the  Hon. 
Eobert  C.  Schcnck,  of  Dayton,  my  fellow-citizen  still,  and  the  familiar 
friend  of  the  eloquent  gentleman  before  me  (Mr.  Corvvin),  an  old-line 
Whig  now,  with  a  slight,  very  slight  varnish  of  Republicanism. 

Allow  me,  sir,  to  read  what  he  said  in  a  similar,  thouirh  not  so  alarm- 
ing, wisis  in  public  affairs,  on  the  27th  of  December,  1849  : 

"  If  we  of  the  Northern  States  "— 

We  had  no  West  then,  sir ;  her  existence  and  geography  have  been 
ascertained,  and  settled  since — 

"  If  we  of  the  Northern  States  would  not  vote  for  a  Southern  man,  merely  because 
he  is  a  Southern  man,  aad  men  of  the  South  will  not  vote  for  a  Northern  man, 
merely  because  he  is  a  Northern  man;  and  if  that  principle  is  to  be  carried  out 
from  here  into  all  our  national  politics  and  elections,  what  must  be  tlie  result  ?  Dis- 
union. That  itself  is  disunion".  You  may  disguise  and  cover  up  as  you  please, 
but  that  it  will  be.  It  may,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as  but  the  first  step  in  disunion ; 
but  its  consequence  follows  as  inevitable  as  fate.  One  section — the  North  or  the 
South — must  always  have  the  majority.  Disfranchise  all  upon  the  other  side,  and 
the  Union  could  not  hold  together  a  day ;  it  ought  not  to  hold  toyether  upon  such  condi- 
tions a  day.  On  this  iloor  we  now  have  from  the  free  States  one  hundred  and  forty 
Representatives,  and  ninety  from  the  slave  States.  Suppose  the  relative  numbers 
were  reversed  ;  would  we  submit  to  be  denied  all  participation  in  privileges  here  7 
Not  for  an  hour.  And  shouid  we  ask  for  such  submission  from  others  ?  Never. 
The  "Whig  party  say — never.     The  true  people  of  the  North  say — never." 

That,  sir,  was  good  Whig  doctrine  ten  years  ago.     It  was  good  Araer- 


222  VALLANDIGHAM'S    SPEECHES. 

ican  doctrine  in  1856;  and  I  aver  here,  upon  my  responsibility  as  a 
Representative,  that  it  is  good  sound  Democratic  doctrine  everywhere, 
and  all  the  time. 

Then,  sir,   I  ara  against  disunion.     I  find    no  more  pleasure  in   a 
Southern  disunionist  than  in  a  Northern  or  Western  disunionist.     Do 
not  tell  me  that  you  of  the  South  have  an  apology  in  the  events  and 
developments  of  the  last  few  months.     I  know  you  have.     War — irre- 
pressible war,  has  been  proclaimed  against  your  institution  of  slavery  ;  it 
has  been  carried  into  your  own  States ;  arson  and  murder  have  been 
committed  upon  your  own  soil ;  peaceful  citizens  have  been  ruthlessly 
shot  down  at  the  threshold  of  their  own  doors.  You  avenged  the  wrong ; 
you  executed  the  murderer  and  the  felon ;  but  he  has  risen  from  the 
dead  a  hero  and  a  martyr ;  and  now  the  apostles  of  this  new  Messiah  of 
Abolition,  with  scrip  and  purse,  armed  with  the  sword,  insolent  from 
augmenting  numbers,  apostles  rather  of  Mahomet,  disciples  of  Peter  the 
Hermit,  are  but  gathering  strength,  and  awaiting  the  hour  for  a  new 
invasion.     Certainly — certainly,  in  all  this  you  have  ample  justification 
for  whatsoever  of  excitement  and  alarm  and  indignation  pen-ade  now 
the  whole  South,  from  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  down  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.     But  will  you  secede  now  ?     Will  you  break  up  the  Union  of 
these  States  ?      Will  you  bring  down  forever,  in  one  promiscuous  ruin, 
the  columns  and  pillars  of  this  magnificent  temple  of  liberty,  which  our 
fathers  reared  at  so  great  cost  of  blood  and  of  treasure  ?     Wait  a  little  • 
Wait  a  little !     Let  us  try  again  the  peaceful,  the  ordinary,  the  constitu- 
tional means  for  the  redress  of  grievances.     Let  us  resort  once  more  to 
the  ballot-box.     Let  us  try  once  again  that  weapon^  surer  set,  and  better 
than  the  bayonet. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  am  not,  perhaps,  so  hopeful  of  the  final  result  as  some 
other  men ;  but  I  was  tauiiht  in  mv  boyhood  that  noblest  of  all  Roman 
maxims — never  to  despair  of  the  Republic.  I  was  taught,  too,  by  pious 
lips,  a  yet  higher  and  holier  doctrine  still — a  firm  belief  in  a  superin- 
tending Providence,  which  governs  in  the  affairs  of  men.  I  do  believe 
that  God,  in  his  infinite  goodness,  has  foreordained  for  this  land  a  high- 
er, mightier,  grander  destiny  tlian  for  any  other  country  since  the  world 
began ;  Time's  noblest  empire  is  the  last.  From  the  Arctic  Ocean  to  the 
Isthmus  of  Darien ;  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Alleghanies ;  stretching 
far  and  wide  over  the  vast  basin  of  the  Mississippi,  scaling  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  lost  at  last  in  the  blue  waters  of  the  Pacific,  I  behold,  in 
holy  and  patriotic  vision,  one  Union,  one  Constitution,  one  Destint. 
(Applause.)  But  this  grand  and  magnificent  destiny  cannot  be  fulfilled 
by  us,  except  as  a  united  people.  Clouds  and  darkness,  indeed,  rest 
now  over  us;  we  are  in  the  midst  of  perils;  rocks  and  quicksands  are 
before  us;  strife  and  discord  arc  all  around  us.     How  then,  sir — mighty 


THERE  IS   A   WEST.  223 

and  momentous  question,  pregnant  with  the  fate  of  an  empire — shall  we 
bring  peace  to  this  divided  and  distracted  country  ?  Sir,  in  my  delibe- 
rate and  most  solemn  judgment,  there  is  but  one  way  of  escape  ;  and 
that  the  immediate,  absolute,  unconditional  disbandment  of  this  sec- 
tional, anti-slavery,  Republican  party  of  yours.  (Applause  in  the  gal- 
leries.) If  not,  then  upon  your  heads,  and  upon  the  heads  of  your 
children,  be  the  blood  of  this  Republic.  You  have  organized  a  political 
part}',  based  upon  geographical  discriminations,  and  for  the  purpose  of 
administering  this  Government  for  the  benefit  of  a  part.  You  have 
neither  strength,  nor  organization,  nor  existence  even,  in  one-half,  nearly, 
of  the  States  of  this  Union.  Look  around  you.  Behold  upon  this  side 
of  the  house  eveiy  section  represented.  Here  are  the  United  States. 
What  do  we  see  upon  the  left  side  of  this  chamber  ?  Not  one  solitary 
Representative  of  your  faith  or  party  from  fifteen  States  of  this  Union. 
What  does  all  this  mean  ?  It  never  was  so  before  in  the  history  of  this 
Republic.  What  does  it  all  tend  to  ?  Sir,  there  died,  not  many  years 
ago,  in  New  England,  a  man  whom  you  all  once  idolized  as  approaching 
a  little  nearer  in  intellect  to  our  notions  of  divinity  than  most  men  in  any 
age.  Died,  did  I  say  ?  No,  he  "  still  lives  ;"  lives  in  history,  lives  in  the 
public  records,  lives  in  his  published  works,  lives  in  his  public  services, 
lives  upon  canvas,  and  in  marble,  and  in  bronze.  Seven  years  ago,  he 
wrote  to  a  citizen  of  his  native  State: 

"  There  are,  in  New  Hampshire,  many  persons  who  caU  themselves  Whigs,  who  are 
no  Whigs  at  all;  and  no  better  than  disunionists.  Any  man  xoho  hesitates  in  grant- 
ing and  securing  to  every  part  of  the  country  its  just  and  Constitutional  rights,  is  AN 

ENEMY   TO   THE   WHOLE   COUNTRY." 

I  know,  gentlemen  of  the  Republican  party,  that  you  profess,  many  of 
you,  that  you  would  not  deny  any  Constitutional  right  to  the  States  of 
the  South.  Admit  it.  But  let  me  ask  you  by  what  rule  of  interpreta- 
tion do  you  propose  to  ascertain  these  rights  ?  I  appeal  to  your  pfet- 
forms,  to  your  speeches,  to  your  acts.  Like  the  learned  doctor  of  PacJua, 
you  confess  the  bond ;  the  Venetian  law  cannot  impugn  it ;  but  you 
would  give  the  exact  pound  of  flesh,  shedding  no  blood,  cutting  nor  more 
nor  less,  under  penalty  of  death  and  confiscation,  than  the  just  pound, 
not  to  be  made  light  or  heavy  in  the  balance,  or  the  division  of  the 
twentieth  part  of  one  poor  scruple,  nor  in  the  estimation  of  a  hair.  You 
well  know  that  rights  thus  yielded  are  rights  withheld ;  and  withheld, 
too,  with  every  aggravation  of  insult  and  wrong.  Is  that  the  spirit  of 
the  Constitutional  compact  ?  Js  that  the  spirit  which  animated  the  great 
man  and  patriot  whose  ashes  repose  upon  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  or 
of  that  other  hero  and  patriot  who  finds  a  resting-place,  in  his  long 
sleep,  amid  the  shades  of  the  Ilermitage  ?  How  long,  think  you,  can 
such  a  Union  last  ?  and  what,  above  all,  is  it  worth  while  it  does  last  ? 


224  VALLANDIGHAm's    SrEECHES. 

I  have  now  finished  what  I  desired  to  say  upon  the  moraentous  suT)- 
jects  whicli  have  been  introduced  into  this  discussion.  I  have  spoken 
freely  of  disuxiok.  The  time,  most  unhappily,  has  gone  by  when  that 
melancholy  theme  can  any  longer  be  ignored  or  evaded.  It  must  b.e 
met — met  promptly,  and  met  not  with  affected  contempt,  nor  with  real 
indifforenco.  I  have  not  spoken  of  it  with  any  unmanly  terror,  but  only 
with  that  sad  and  solemn  alarm  and  apprehension  which  every  patriot 
ought  to  feel  in  contemplating  the  overthrow  of  a  Union  so  grand,  a 
Constitution  so  admirable,  a  Government  so  vast,  and  institutions  so 
noble,  as  these  under  and  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  still  permitted 
to  live. 

Sir,  a  Southern  paper,  not  many  miles  from  this  capitol,  has  been 
pleased  to  say  that  there  is  no  Southern  State  contemplating  secession, 
in  any  possible  contingency.  No;  they  are  only  "coolly  calculating 
the  effect  of  disunion  threats  upon  the  nerves  of  f9ie  Northern  and  West- 
ern States."  I  do  not  believe  it.  Whoever  utters  it,  libels  the  South 
and  the  North  and  the  West.  Idle  threats  and  menaces  will  no  longer 
frighten  any  one.  Mutual  interests  and  mutual  fears  do,  indeed,  bind 
us  together  still ;  but  fraternal  affection  and  good-will  are  the  only  bands 
which  can  keep  us  a  united  people.  They  are  the  silver  cord  and  the 
golden  bowl  which  are  now  so  well-nigh  broken  at  the  fountain.  If  they 
be,  indeed,  snapped  asunder,  then  nor  threats,  nor  fears,  nor  interests, 
nor  any  thing  else  can  keep  us  together.  My  nerves,  at  least,  are  of  the 
hardest  and  the  toughest.  I  am  no  more  to  be  moved  from  my  pro- 
priety by  clamor  and  menace  from  the  South,  than  by  denunciation  and 
fanaticism  from  the  North  or  the  West.  Standing  here — I  repeat  it — an 
armed  neutral  in  the  midst  of  this  conflict  of  sections,  I  propose,  in  all 
humility,  but  in  all  justice,  to  hold  even  and  impartial  the  scales  be- 
tween them.  I  have  spoken  freely  and  plainly,  but  have  spoken  justly 
afld  truly.  I  have  not  sought  to  conceal  the  evil  which  afflicts  us — 
stfil  less  to  exaggerate  it,  but  only  to  exhibit  it  just  as  it  is ;  for  be 
assured — be  assured  there  is  no  medicine  nor  surgery  which  can  heal  it 
without  the  utmost  disclosure  and  knowledge  of  the  true  cause  and 
character  and  extent  of  the  disease.  I  have  spoken  briefly  of  the  pres- 
ent evil  state  of  public  sentiment  in  the  North  and  the  West ;  in  Ohio, 
my  own  native  State.  Yet,  mother  as  she  is,  I  have  sought  rather  to 
imitate,  not  the  rude  and  obscene  behavior  of  Ham,  but  the  filial  piety 
and  modesty  of  the  elder  sons  of  the  Patriarch  when  mellowed  with 
wine,  and  quietly,  with  averted  eye,  to  cover  her  nakedness  with  the 
mantle  of  silence.  Yet,  as  a  Representative  here  in  this  Chamber,  I 
Iiavc  a  duty  to  perform  for  the  whole  country,  for  the  sake  of  the  Con- 
stitution, for  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union,  and  as  its  last  hope. 

I  kn(5w  well,  indeed,  that  much  that  I  have  said  to-day,  will  here,  as 


NEWSPAPERS. ^THE   MAILS.  •  225 

elsewhere,  be  denounced  as  pro-slavery.  Be  it  so.  I  have  heard  that 
too  often,  ah-eady,  to  feel  the  slightest  apprehension  or  alarm  ;  but  I  tell 
you,  gentlemen,  as  a  thousand  times  I  hav^e  told  those  who  sent  me 
here  that :  If  to  love  my  country,  to  revere  the  Constitution,  to  cherish 
the  Union ;  if  to  abhor  the  madness  and  hate  the  treason  which  would 
lift  up  a  sacrilegious  hand  against  either ;  if  to  read  that  in  the  past,  to 
behold  it  in  the  present,  to  foresee  it  in  the  future  of  this  land,  which 
is  of  more  value  to  us  and  to  the  world,  for  ages  to  come,  than  all  the 
multiplied  millions  who  have  inhabited  Africa  from  the  creation  to  this 
day — if  this  it  is  to  be  pro-slavery,  then  in  every  nerve,  fibre,  vein,  bone, 
tendon,  joint,  and  ligament,  from  the  topmost  hair  of  the  head  to  the 
last  extremity  of  the  foot,  I  am  all  over  and  altogether  a  pro-slavery 
MAN.     (Applause  from  the  Democratic  benches  and  the  galleries.) 


•    NEWSPAPERS.— THE   MAILS  * 


House  of  Representatites, 
Washington,  D.  C,  Jan.  5tk^  1860. 
Hon.  J.  Holt,  Postmaster-General : 

Sir: — Tlie  Rev.  John  Lawrence,  editor  of  the  Religious  Telescope, 
published  in  Daj'ton,  Ohio,  and  within  the  district  which  I  represent 
and  the  city  where  I  reside,  has  advised  me  that  the  paper  above 
named,  a  religious  paper  advocating  the  faith  and  practice  of  the 
United  Brethren  in  Christ,  is  no  longer  delivered  to  its  subscriber-s 
by  the  postmaster  at  Luney's  Creek,  Hardy  County,  Virginia,  but  is 
committed  to  the  flames.  He  asks  me  to  solicit  the  interposition 
of  the  Department  to  redress  what  he  complains  of  as  a  grievance. 
The  Telescope,  though  a/nti-slavery  in  sentiment  when  the  subject  is 
alluded  to,  is  not  an  anti-slavery  paper,  and  is  not,  as  I  am  informed 
and  believe,  "  incendiary"  in  its  character  in  any  respect,  nor  directly  or 
indirectly  insuixectionary  in  its  teachings. 

Certainly,  every  State  has  the  right  to  protect  itself,  by  all  constitu- 
tional and  just  means,  from  insurrection  and  domestic  violence.  It  has 
a  right,  by  police  laws  and  regulations,  to  secure  the  health  and  prop- 
erty, guard  the  morals,  and  insure  the  peace  of  its  citizens.  Congress 
and  the  courts  of  the  United  States  have  repeatedly  recognized  this  right. 

*  In  December,  1S59,  ;v  postmaster  in  Hardy  County,  Virginia,  having  suppressed 
the  Beligious  Tchncopc,  of  Dayton,  O.,  at  his  office,  as  an  Abolition  paper,  Mr.  Val- 
LANDiGHAM,  at  the  request  of  the  editor,  addressed  the  following  letter  to  the  Post- 
Office  Department,  remonstrating  against  the  act.  The  Virginia  postmaster  was 
immediatelycommanded  to  obey  the  law,  and  the  Telescope  had  no  farther  trouble. 

15 


226  yat.t.andigham's  speeches. 

Eacli  State  may  also,  in  the  exercise  of  this  right,  detennine  by  la'vr 
vhat  are  "incendiary"  pablicatioos^  tending  to  incite  servile  or  other 
insurrections,  and  adopt  such  measares,  not  inconsistent  with  the  Con- 
stitution, laws  and  treaties  of  the  United  States,  as  it  may  think  proper  to 
prevent  their  introduction  or  circulation.  This  was  assumed,  or  conceded 
by  Calhoun,  Clay  .Webster,  and  by  every  other  Senator  in  the  debate  upon 
this  question  in  1S36.  But,  admitting  all  this,  I  suggest  that  an  abase,  in 
his  omcial  capatritt/,  bj/  an  ojicer  of  the  Federal  Government^  of  authority 
derived  from  a  State  law  acting  upon  him  as  a  citizen  of  the  State,  though 
the  law  be  strictly  constitutional  and  necessary,  is  clearly  remediable 
by  the  power  whence  he  derives  his  appointment.  K  '•  under  the  respon- 
sibilities resting  upon  him  as  an  officer  and  a  citizen.*'  he  is  to  '*  determine 
whether  the  bo«jks,  pamphlets,  newspapers,  &c^  received  by  him  for 
distribution  are  of  the  incendiary  character  described  in  the  Statute," 
does  it  not  follow,  that  an  appeal  lies  from  the  subordinate  to  his 
superior,  to  review  the  decision  and,  subject  to  final  adjudication  by  the 
State  and  Federal  courts,  to  interpret  tne  State  law  under  which  he  acts  ? 
If  not.  then  the  most  flagrant  abuses  and  usurpatioai  of  authority  may, 
with  impunity,  be  committed  by  inferior,  and  it  may  be,  irresponsi- 
ble officers,  in  the  discharge  of  official  duties  under  the  General  Govern- 
ment, and  these  usurpations  and  abuses  not  be  confined  to  the  mail 
senriee  alone.  Under  cover  of  executing  State  police  regulations  and 
State  laws,  guarding  against  insurrection  and  mischief  of  any  sort, 
would  it  not  be  in  the  power  of  any  other  Federal  officers  to  tiisregard  the 
laws  of  the  United  States  in  other  respects  ?  If  the  Federal  Executive 
cannot  intervene  to  supervise  or  control  the  action  of  its  own  subordinate 
officials,  may  they  not  be  used  by  the  States  as  instruments  whereby  to 
nullify  the  laws  and  expel  the  authority  of  the  Federal  Government 
itself  ?  If  subject  exclusively  to  State  control  in  the  delivery,  by  post- 
masters, of  mail  matter,  why  not  also  in  the  transportation  of  the  mail 
by  mail-carriers  ?  and  if  in  both  these  particulars,  or  in  either,  why  not 
also  in  the  rendition  of  fogitive  slaves,  by  controlling,  under  pretext  of 
preventini;  fcidnappinir.  the  United  States  marshals  in  the  several  States  \ 
Is  not  thi?  a  doctrine  fraught  with  danger  to  the  peace  and  harmoay  of  the 
Confederacy  ? 

But  surely  the  Government  of  the  United  States  has  a  right  and  is 
bound  to  see  that  its  officers,  in  the  exercise  of  official  powers  conferred 
upon  them  by  the  Federal  Constitution  and  laws,  shall  not  in  the  least  be 
permitte»i  to  abuse  even  the  just  and  constitutional  duties  required  of  thom 
as  citizens  of  States,  bv  State  laws  and  re2rciIations.  Bv  act  of  Conorross 
in  1796,  collectors  and  other  revenue  officers  of  the  Uniteil  States,  masters 
and  crews  of  revenue  cutters,  and  military  officers  commanding  upon  the 
sea-coast,  are  authorized  and  required  to  aid  in  executing  the  .quarantine 


05^   TTTF    DZATH    OF    HOX.    WILLIAM   O.    GOODE.        227 

and  health  laws  of  the  sereral  States :  L:::  "c:  -.\i-j  ■.\z'.l  \-r.  il-'irttd 
from  lime  to  time  by  the  Secretary  of  ikt  TrecusuryT  Co^reas  has 
passed  CO  similar  statute  in  the  case  of  poUicatioiis  prohUHled  by  any 
of  the  States :  but  if  postmastos  9dL  without  sudi  law,  and  under 
State  regulations  alone,  sdll  ihesr  action  must,  in  my  judgment,  be  sub- 
ject equally  to  the  saperridon  and  control  of  the  Post-Office  Department 
or  of  the  President.  The  State  anthoiities  and  officials  are  sabject  of 
coarse  to  no  control  by  the  Federal  Goremment  in  this  paitkafai; 
except  by  due  course  of  law  through  the  State  GDirrts  and  C:--t3  rf 
the  United  States. 

I  ask,  therefore,  on  behalf  of  the  gendranan  abov^  :  ^  :• 

lepresenls  a  laige  dass  of  the  most  orderly,  peace^ov:  .  - 

of  my  constituents,  that  such  instructions  vaa\  be  issued  to  the  Post- 
master at  Lunevs  Creek,  as  in  the  dischai^  of  his  duties  underdie  laws 
of  Virginia,  will  nevertheless  prevoit  **  unieasmable  seardies  and  seia- 
ures,*^  and  compel  a  wise  and  just  disoretkm  and  discrimiiialicm  on  his 
part,  as  a  Federal  oSc^,  in  executing  the  laws  and  legnlations  which 
that  State  has  found  it  neoessaiy  to  enad^  fat  protecdon  against  mur- 
derous and  incendiaiy  efforts  and  combinations  in  other  States  to  stir  Tq> 
civil  dissenaons  or  excite  servile  insurrections  in  her  nlid^  l^h^,  at 
least,  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  represent,  have  alwqrs  obeyed  and 
respected,  and  ever  will  re;^>ect  and  obey,  eveiy  requironent  and  obfiga- 
tion  of  the  Constitutional  compact.  Hie  vast  m^ority  dT  dietn,  eer- 
tainly,  regard  none  of  its  obligations  and  requimoents  as  other  odioos 
or  onerous,  and  they  ask  only  that  their  rights  also  under  fliat  o(»ipacl, 
shall  be  in  like  maimer  and  fully  protected  a:::d  e^'oyed. 


•EEitAESi  OX  THZ    IZATH    OJ  THZ  HOX.   '7r~--KV:  0.   GOODE,  OP 

TIHGDnA. 

I*  tke  ffo"f*  or  BepregemtatiweSj  Feiruu.-^  _:,  ISoO. 

The  act  which  we  pcnorm  to-dav.  in  memorr  of  the  deceased  Bep- 
lesentative  from  ^'-r- ':"-  is  an  ancient  and  b^tdi^  observance.      R 

does  honor  to  the  it  reminds  us  of  our  own  BK»ta}itv.    Xo  mcve 

impressive  scene  is  ever  witnessed  in  this  Otambo-.  Envr  holds  her 
breath ;  partisan  bitterness  is  hushed  for  a  nHMnent,  and  eren  silevcs, 
that  rare  visitant  here,  ejrtends  her  tranquillizing  wings  for  a  little  while 
over  us.  In  this  spirit  let  us  approach  this  last  scdemn  office  of  feOow- 
ship.  and  with  the  sobered  earnestness  whidi  becomes  these  sad 
cexemonies,  and  the  chastened  moderatMm  due  to  histodc  tncth,  kt  ns 


228  vallandigham's  spepxiies. 

discharge  it.  Exaggerated  eulogy,  however  pardonable  in  mere  partial 
friendship,  has  long  since  been  exhausted  upon  these  occasions,  and  we 
but  too  often  repeat  the  folly  of  the  barbarians,  who,  worshipping  a  fly, 
offered  up  an  ox  in  sacrifice.  Honoring  the  dead,  let  us  who  yet  live, 
learn  at  the  same  time  to  be  wiser  and  to  do  better  for  the  rest  of  our 
lives,  from  the  study  of  his  character  and  example. 

My  acquaintance  with  the  deceased  member  from  Virginia  was  but 
Kmited.  I  knew  him  personally  as  a  Representative  in  the  Thirty -fifth 
Congress ;  but  I  had  from  boyhood  known  him  by  name  as  one  among 
the  most  eminent  of  the  public  men  of  the  Ancient  Dominion.  His  life 
and  public  services  I  do  not  propose  to  rehearee.  The  gentleman  from 
South  Carolina  (Mr.  Miles)  has  anticipated  me  in  saying  that  they  have 
already  been  exhibited  in  fitting  terms  by  the  eloquent  gentleman  (Mr. 
Pkyor)  who  succeeds  to  his  seat. 

Although  I  may  not  say  that  Mr.  Goode  was  one  of  those  great  his- 
toric characters  who  mark  the  eras  in  a  nation's  annals,  yet  he  unques- 
tionably possessed  more  than  one  of  those  high  and  rare  qualities 
without  which  no  man  and  no  statesman  can  be  truly  great.  Born  in 
Virginia,  and  soon  after  the  Revolution,  reared  in  "  the  honestest  and 
most  virgin  times"  of  the  Republic,  and  among  the  great  and  good 
men  of  an  age  and  a  State  full  of  great  men  and  patriots,  certainly  with- 
out these  qualities  he  could  not  have  commanded  the  confidence  of  the 
people  for  nearly  forty  years,  in  so  many  and  such  distinguished  public 
stations. 

William  0.  Goode  was  an  honest  man  in  public  and  in  private  life. 
Sincere  in  his  convictions,  earnest  in  his  purposes,  he  meant  always  to 
be  and  to  do  right.  He  was  neither  a  demagogue  nor  a  mere  partisan. 
"While  he  had  wisdom  enough  and  consistency  enough  to  respect  party 
habitudes,  he  obeyed  not  blindly  the  behests  of  party.  He  scorned  that 
vulgar  and  polluting  partisan  school  of  ethics  which  would  lay  down  one 
rule  of  conduct  f6r  private,  and  another  for  public  life,  and  which  pro-  • 
claims  in  execrable  cant  that  "  all  is  fair  in  politics."  Far  higher  and 
nobler  were  the  political  philosophy  and  morals  wliich  ho  had  learned 
and  which  he  practised.  He  recognized  in  theory  and  in  action,  that 
great  modern  fact,  so  slowly  acknowledged  and  so  continually  ignored, 
that  there  is  a  code  of  ethics  in  political  life,  as  well  defined,  as  firmly 
settled,  as  pure  and  elevated,  and  as  obligatory  upon  the  citizen  and 
upon  the  public  man  alike,  as  the  sublime  doctrines  of  Socrates  and  of 
Cicero,  or  the  holier  and  sublimer  precepts  still  of  the  Sermon  upon  the 
Mount. 

But  Mr.  Goode  was  something  more  than  honest :  he  was  just. 
Many  an  honest  man  is  yet  imjust ;  and  justice  in  public  life  and  in  the 
private  political  relation  is  rarer  than  honesty.      Honesty  springs  from 


••• 


ox   THE   DEATH    OF   IIOX.    WILLIAM   O.    GOODE.        229 

the  heart,  and  is,  in  some  degree,  an  impulse :  justice  belongs  to  the 
head,  and  is  a  fixed  principle  of  conduct.  It  renders  to  every  man  his 
due.  Honest  himself,  he  was  just  enough  to  concede  honesty  of  pur- 
pose and  rectitude  in  action  to  other  men  and  parties  in  antagonism  to 
him.  lie  acted  continually,  too,  under  a  sense  of  duty,  and  he  acted, 
therefore,  always  well.  A  German  writer  has  said,  delicately,  that  there 
are  two  things  supremely  beautiful  in  this  world — the  starry  sky  above 
our  heads  and  the  sense  of  duty  in  our  hearts.  This  sense  of  duty 
seemed  ever  present  in  his  heart  to  whom  we  pay  now  these  honors. 
And  he  had,  also,  that  firmness  of  purpose  without  which  every  virtue 
loses  more  than  half  its  worth.  Thus  he  united  in  himself  the  Justus  et 
tenaz  which  filled  the  measure  of  poetic  eulogy,  even  in  the  declining 
age  of  the  Roman  commonwealth.  And  to  all  this  I  may  add  that 
though  not  of  brilliant  genius,  he  was  yet  a  wise,  prudent,  and  sagacious 
public  man. 

Mr.  GooDE  was  also  a  pure  man — pure  in  private  morals  and  in 
public  morals ;  pure  in  spirit  and  pure  in  speech.  He  was  a  quiet  man, 
too,  and  did  the  business  of  this  House  quietly.  He  was  a  pious  man,  in 
the  ancient  and  nobler  sense  of  the  word — pious  in  his  relations  to  the 
Supreme  Being,  to  his  family,  to  his  friends,  his  country,  and  the  world 
at  large.  Moreover  he  was  a  man  of  honjr,  and  a  gentleman  in  his 
manners  and  in  his  instincts.  Without  all  these,  duly  blended  and  com- 
bined into  one,  no  man,  however  eminent  his  abilities,  can  be  a  truly 
great  statesman.  The  ancient  rhetoricians  had  a  maxim  that  no 
one  could  be  an  orator  except  he  were  a  good  man.  Far  more  strictly 
ought  this  rule  to  be  applied  to  him  who  would  mould  the  manners, 
habits,  opinions,  and  the  laws,  and  control  the  destinies  of  a  whole 
people. 

Combining  thus  within  himself  these  several  excellencies,  in  a  degree 
which  I  have  not  exaggerated,  of  William  O.  Goode  it  may  be  justly 
said :  In  him  was  virtus  Scipiadce  et  rnitis  sapientia  Loeli — the  virtue  of 
the  Scipios  and  the  mild  wisdom  of  Laelius. 


230  VALLANDIGH All's    SPEECHES. 


REMARKS  ON  HIS  BILL  FOR  ARMING  THE  MILITIA  OF  THE  STATES. 
In  the  House  of  Representatives^  March  13,  18G0. 

I  DO  not  know,  Mr.  Speaker,  whether  it  is  strictly  in  order  here  to 
discuss  any  thing  but  the  issues  of  Democracy  and  Republicanism,  or  the 
vexed  question  of  slavery ;  but  at  the  hazard  of  being  deemed  singular, 
if  not  disorderly,  I  propose  to  depart  now,  for  a  little  while,  from  the 
beaten  pathway  of  debate.  This  motion,  sir,  to  reconsider  opens  up  the 
general  merits  of  the  proposed  measure,  and  I  ask  the  attention  of  the 
House  for  about  fifteen  minutes,  while  I  explain  it ;  I  will  not 
detain  you  longer,  and,  that  I  may  not,  I  desire  to  speak  without  inter- 
ruption. 

Mr.  Speaker,  if  there  was  any  one  sentiment  more  deeply  fixed  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  founded  this  Republic  than  any  other,  it  was  jeal- 
ousy of  standing  armies.  It  passed  into  a  maxim  among  them  that  large 
miUtary  establishments  in  time  of  peace,  were  dangerous  to  liberty.  That 
maxim  remains  to  this  day  in  the  bill  of  rights  in  many  of  our  State  con- 
stitutions. It  has  left  its  impress  also  upon  the  policy  and  legislatira 
of  this  Government  to  the  present  time,  when,  with  twelve  thousand 
miles  of  land  and  water  frontier,  encircling  three  millions  of  square  miles, 
we  have  a  standing  army  numbering  less  than  twelve  thousand  effective 
men.  And  yet  no  statesmen  were  more  sensitive  to  national  honor,  or 
more  awake  to  the  necessity  of  national  defence.  Hostile  to  standing 
armies,  but  zealous  to  provide  for  the  public  safety,  they  looked  to  the 
MILITIA  of  the  several  States  for  protection  against  foreign  and  domestic 
enemies ;  and  it  stands  a  part,  though  a  forgotten  part  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  that  "  a  well-regulated  militia  is  necessary  to 
the  security  of  a  free  State!'''  Though  that  maxim,  sir,  was  not  a  part 
originally  of  that  instrument,  yet  it  is  impliedly  acknowledged,  in  all  its 
force,  in  the  several  clauses  relating  to  that  subject.  Congress  has 
power  to  provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the 
Union,  to  suppress  insurrection,  and  repel  invasion.  Congress  is  also  spe- 
cially empowered  "  to  provide  for  organizing,  arming,  and  disciplining 
the  militia,  and  for  governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be  employed  in 
the  service  of  the  United  States,  reserving  to  the  States  respectively  the 
appointment  of  the  officers,  and  tlie  authority  of  training  the  militia 
according  to  the  system  prescribed  by  Congress." 

No  subject,  sir,  engrossed  the  attention  of  the  earlier  Presidents  of 
the  Republic  more  than  this  very  power,  thus  amply,  but  cautiously, 
conferred.    General  Washington,  in  every  formal  communication  to  Con- 


ON    ARMING   THE   MILITIA    OF   THE    STATES.  231 

gress  during  bis  term  of  office,  earnestly  invoked  their  attention  to  it ; 
and,  in  his  seventh  annual  message,  or  address,  he  refers  to  it  as  an  ob- 
ject of  so  much  moment,  in  his  estimation,  as  to  excite  a  constant  solici- 
tude that  the  consideration  of  it  might  be  renewed  until  the  greatest 
attainable  perfection  should  be  accomplished.  President  John  Adams 
also,  in  his  special  message,  in  1797,  again  pressed  the  subject  upon  the 
attention  of  Congress  ;  and  Mr.  Jefferson  was  importunate,  even,  in  urg- 
ing up<m  that  body  additional  and  more  effective  legislation  in  regard  to 
the  militia.  In  his  first  annual  message,  in  1801,  he  uses  this  strong 
language  : 

•'  These  considerations  render  it  important  that  we  should  at  every  session  continue 
to  amend  the  defects  which  from  time  to  time  show  themselses  in  the  laws  for  reg- 
ulating the  militia,  until  they  are  sufficiently  perfec  t.  Nor  should  we  now,  or  at  any 
time,  separate  until  we  can  say  that  we  have  done  every  thing  for  the  militia  which  we 
cotUd  do  were  an  enemy  at  our  door.^^ 

And  this  recommendation  he  earnestly  renewed  in  every  annual  mes- 
sage during  his  term  of  office.  After  him,  Madison,  speaking  of  the 
militia  as  "  the  great  bulwark  of  public  snfety,"  and  Monroe,  and  the 
younger  Adams,  and  Jackson,  and  Van  Buren,  and  later  Presidents 
still,  down  to  within  the  last  eight  or  ten  years,  did,  with  pertinacious 
importunity,  again  and  again  press  this  subject  upon  the  consideration 
of  Congress.  And,  indeed,  it  is  safe  to  say,  that  no  question  of  public 
policy  whatever  has  at  any  time  called  forth  such  united  and  persistent 
recommendation  from  the  Executive  Department  for  fifty  years  together; 
and  it  is  equally  true,  that  no  Secretary  of  War  has  failed  during  that 
period  to  bestow  earnest  attention  upon  it.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  no 
subject  has  been  more  utterly  neglected  by  Congress.  The  Constitution 
gives  us  the  power — exclusive,  if  we  choose  to  exercise  it — of  organizing, 
arming,  and  disciplining  the  militia.  In  1792,  an  act  was  passed  to 
organize  and  arm  the  whole  body  of  white  male  citizens  of  the  resp^- 
tive  States  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-five.  It  was  very 
imperfect  in  its  details,  and  made  no  adequate  provision  for  the  disci- 
pline according  to  which  they  were  to  be  trained  by  the  several  States. 
Though  still  nominally  in  force,  it  is  now  everywhere,  for  the  most  part, 
disregarded.  Indeed,  if  it  were  to  be  strictly  executed,  every  white 
male  citizen  of  the  United  States,  over  the  age  of  eighteen  and  under 
forty-five,  would  be  required,  within  six  months  after  enrolment  and 
notification,  to  provide  himself  with  a  good  musket  or  fire-lock,  bayonet 
and  belt,  "  two  spare  flints,"  and  a  knapsack  ;  or  with  a  good  rifle, 
knapsack,  shot-pouch,  powder-horn,  "  twenty  bails,  and  a  quarter  pound 
of  powder."  Every  commissioned  officer  would,  in  like  manner,  be  re- 
quired to  arm  himself  with  a  sword,  or  hanger,  and  "  espontoou  ;"  or, 
if  a  dragoon  officer,  to  provide  himself  with  a  horse  fourteen  and  a  half 


232  VALLAT^DIGHAJl's    SPEECHES. 

hands  high,  sword  and  pistols,  and  "holsters  covered  with  beai-skin 
caps ;"  and  every  private  among  dragoons  would  be  required  to  tind  a 
serviceable  horse,  of  the  same  height,  with  bridle,  saddle,  )nailpillion, 
valise,  holsters,  breastplates,  cnippei",  boots,  spurs,  pistols,  sabre,  and 
cartouch-box.  That,  sir,  is  literally  what  the  law  of  1792  exacts  of 
every  white  man  in  the  United  States  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
forty-five,  except  members  of  Congress,  ferrymen,  stage-drivers,  clergy- 
men, and  a  few  others  specially  exempted  from  its  operation  ;  and  all 
this,  let  it  be  remembered,  at  the  individual  cost  of  each  citizen  enrolled 
under  the  law.  And  the  Congress  which  passed  it  refused,  by  a  vote 
of  fifty  to  six,  upon  a  motion  specially  made  for  that  purpose,  to  strike  out 
the  provision.  Some  progress  was,  indeed,  made  a  few  years  later, 
when,  by  the  act  of  1798,  thii-ty  thousand  stand  of  arms  were  ordered 
to  be  purchased  by  the  United  States,  and  sold  to  the  States,  for  the 
pui-pose  of  arming  the  militia.  But  it  was  not  until  1808  that  Conoress 
recognized  the  duty,  clearly  imposed  upon  it  by  the  Constitution,  of 
providing  arms  at  the  expense  of  the  Unit-ed  States  for  the  militia  of  the 
several  States.  It  was  in  that  year  that  the  act,  which  I  propose  now 
to  amend  and  make  more  effective,  was  passed,  appropriating  the  sura 
of  $200,000  for  that  purpose.  It  has  never  been  changed  in  this 
■  respect ;  nor  has  there  ever  been  any  enactment  to  faithfully  and  suffi- 
ciently execute  the  other  provisions  of  the  Constitution  empowering, 
and  indee<;l  requiring,  Congress  to  organize  and  discipline  the  militia. 
We  have,  in  these  respects,  virtually  abdicated  our  power  over  the  sub- 
ject. Sir,  I  do  not  ask  or  expect  Congress  to  take  action  in  either  of 
these  particulars.  The^ States  themselves  have  been  compelled,  by  vour 
negligence,  to  provide  for  them  by  their  own  legislation  ;  and  it  is  bet- 
ter, perhaps,  that  the  subject  should  remain  where  it  now  is,  in  their 
hands.  Congress  having  so  totally  abandoned  all  attention  to  it,  that  the 
vejy  title  "  militia"  has  disappeared  for  years  from  the  index  to  your 
Statutes  at  Large.  Indeed,  if  any  one  will  venture  now  to  introduce 
the  subject  here,  or  speak  the  name,  constitutional  as  it  is,  he  is  in 
great  danger  of  being  made  the  object  of  ridicule  by  valiant  gentlemen, 
inside  of  this  house  and  out  of  it,  who,  but  for  "  vile  guns  and  villan- 
ous  saltpetre,"  would  themselves  have  been  soldiers. 

Judge  Story,  Sir,  eminent  chiefly  as  a  civilian,  but  deeply  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  the  revolutionaiy  period  of  our  history,  and  full  of  an 
enlarged  patriotism,  has  warned  us  solemnly  of  the  danger  to  be  appre- 
hended from  the  growing  indifference  to  this  great  bulwark  of  our  pub- 
lic liberties.  "  Is  there  any  escape,"  he  asks,  "  from  a  large  standing 
army,  but  in  a  well-regulated  militia?" 

But,  Mr.  Speaker,  while  the  citizen  soldiery  of  the  country,  looked  to 
in  the  beginning  of  this  Repubhc  as  the  very  right  arm  of  its  nationjil 


ON"   ARMINa   THE   MILITIA    OF   THE    STATES.  233 

defence,  lias  been  thus  persistently  neglected,  and  sometimes  despised, 
not  so  the  standing  Army  of  the  United  States.  It,  sir,  has  been  the 
foster  child  of  Congress.  While  you  have  passed  but  half  a  score  of  acts 
for  the  encouragement  of  the  militia,  since  the  beginning  of  this  Gov- 
ernment, you  liave  enacted  more  than  one  hundred  for  the  support,  the 
increase,  or  the  efficiency  of  the  Army.  While,  in  fifty-two  years,  from 
the  23d  of  April,  1808,  you  have  appropriated  just  $10,4''00,000  for  the 
militia,  you  have,  within  that  same  period,  expended  $500,000,000  upon 
the  Army.  Sir,  I  am  no  enemy  to  your  Army;  I  am  its  friend.  I  am 
for  its  continuance ;  for  its  increase ;  for  its  efficiency  every  way. 
I  am  for  the  Military  Academy,  too,  and  for  more  of  them,  and  for 
military  academies  established  and  fostered  by  the  several  States. 
I  glory,  sir,  in  the  skill  and  discipline  and  valor  and  the  achievements  in 
times  past  of  that  gallant  little  Army,  dotted,  as  it  is  now,  all  over  the 
vast  area  of  these  States.  But  I  remember  that  there  are  brave  men 
and  good  soldiers  outside  of  that  Army,  and  in  the  various  walks  of 
civil  life.  I  know,  t-oo,  that  for  the  purpose  of  national  defence,  or  even 
for  protection  from  domestic  violence  and  insurrection,  your  Army  is  as 
nothing ;  and  that  your  main  reliance  is  now,  as  it  ever  has  been,  and 
must  ever  continue  to  be,  upon  the  militia  and  volunteers  to  swell  the 
ranks  of  the  Army  and  make  it  effective  for  victory. 

I  will  not  detain  the  House  to  discuss  this  point  at  length  now.  But 
allow  me,  for  a  moment,  to  contrast  the  action  of  Congress  in  regard  to 
these  two  great  arms  of  the  public  defence,  for  the  past  fifty  years.  I 
take  the  date  of  the  act  of  April,  1808,  for  a  starting  point ;  because  it 
was  then  that,  through  the  most  strenuous  exertions  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  the 
first  appropriation  for  arming  the  militia  was  made  by  Congress.  I  close 
with  the-  year  1858;  thus  including,  within  this  brief  review,  a  period 
of  just  half  a  century. 

In  1808  there  were  seventeen  States  in  this  Confederacy ;  now  we 
have  thirty-three,  with  others  just  at  our  doors.  In  1808  the  population 
of  the  United  States  numbered  about  seven  millions ;  now  it  exceeds  thirty 
millions.  Your  Army,  in  1808,  mustered,  all  told,  3,204  ;  on  the  1st  of 
July,  1858,  it  numbered  17,498.  In  1808  the  militia  was  returned  at 
636,386;  in  1858  at  2,755,726,  or  seventeen  times  as  great;  and  the 
actual  number,  po  doubt,  exceeds  this  return  by  nearly  a  million.  In 
1806  the  militia  of  Ohio  was  returned  at  15,351 ;  in  1845,  the  date  of 
the  last  return  from  that  State,  at  176,455,  or  eleven  times  greater.  In 
1808,  uhder  the  act  of  that  year,  the  appropriation  equalled  the  sum  of 
thirty-one  cents  to  each  militia-man  in  the  United  States;  in  1858  it 
had  fallen  to  less  than  seven  cents.  But  the  contrast  is  far  more  striking 
in  the  item  of  expenditures.  Remember  that  the  appropriation  for 
arming  the  militia  has  remained  stationary  during  all  the  wonderful 


234  VALLAJfDIGIIAM's   SPEECHES. 

mntations  in  numbers,  wealth,  territory.  States,  improvements,  and  wliat- 
ever  else  has  made  us  a  great  people,  at  just  §i!00,000,  for  half  a  cen- 
tury. Not  so  the  standing  Army.  For  the  year  ending  September  30, 
1808,  the  expenditures  of  the  War  Department,  including  Indian  affairs, 
fortifications,  and  armories,  and  tlie  expenses  of  the  new  army  rendered 
necessary  then  by  the  impending  hostilities  between  Great  IJritain  and 
the  United  States — and  it  was  the  year  after  the  attack  upon  the  Ches- 
apeake— were  just  §3,023,759  55.  For  the  year  ending  June  30, 1858, 
the  expenditures  of  the  War  Department  sum  up  thus :  Army  proper, 
$17,455,976  85;  fortifications,  §2,667,448  11;  armories  and  arsenals, 
$1,443,235  74;  in  all,  821,566,660  70,  or  more  than  the  entire  expen- 
diture of  this  whole  Govcrimiont  thirty  years  ago  ;  and  that  not  inclu- 
ding the  expenses  of  the  Indian  department. 

Thus,  sir,  while  the  militia  have  increased  in  fifty  years  from  six  hun- 
dred thousand  to  certainly  three  million,  or  more  now,  the  appropriation 
for  arming  them  has  remained  stationary  at  $200,000 ;  while  your 
Army,  increasing  within  the  same  period  from  three  thousand  two 
luindrcd  to  seventeen  thousand,  four  hundred,  has  increased  its  expendi- 
tures from  §^3,000,000  to  $21,500,000. 

Sir,  these  facts  and  figures  need  no  commentary.  Is  it  not  time, 
then,  I  appeal  to  you,  that  some  attention,  at  least,  should  be  bestowed 
upon  the  militia  of  the  country?  I  repeat,  that  I  do  not  ask  or  expect 
Congress  to  provide  at  all  for  the  discharge  of  its  liigh  constitutional 
duty  of  organizing  and  disciplining  the  citizen  soldiery  of  the  States; 
although  General  Washington  said,  some  seventy  years  ago,  that  the 
"  devising  and  establishing  of  a  well-regulated  militia  would  be  a  genu- 
ine source  of  legislative  honor,  and  a  perfect  title  to  public  gratitude." 
But  I  am  too  well  aware  of  the  many  and  most  serious  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  perfecting  such  a  systen>,  to  hope  to  see  it  accomplished. 
No ;  better  leave  it  still  with  the  States,  and  the  more  especially,  inas- 
much as  to  discipline  or  even  to  organize  efliciently  the  whole  body  of 
the  militia  of  the  United  States,  numbering  now  nearly  four  millions,  is 
utterly  impracticable.  But  some  of  the  States  have  introduced  the 
system,  which  they  are  slowly  perfecting — and,  within  the  past  eight 
years.  Great  Britain  has  followed  their  example — of  volunteers, 
enlisted  of  their  own  accord,  for  a  term  of  years.  These,  sir,  will,  in 
time,  become  the  National  Guard  of  America.  They  are  deserving 
of  the  utmost  encouragement.  But  it  is  not  riclit  that  Congress  should 
abdicate  its  entire  power,  or  rather  its  entire  duty,  in  regard  to  this 
subject.  It  is  not  just  that  the  States  which  already  have  been  com- 
pelled by  your  negligence  to  take  upon  themselves  the  burden  of  organ- 
izing and  disciplining  the  militia,  and  the  heavy  cost  attending  it,  should 
be  required  also  to  provide  arms  out  of  their  own  treasuries.     It  is  still 


ON   AEMING   THE   MILITIA     OF   THE   STATES.        235 

more  grossly  unjust  to  demand  that  the  individual  volunteers,  who  aro 
always  young  men,  and  usually  workingmen  of  limited  means,  and  who 
incur  large  expense  in  procuring  unifoniis,  as  also  loss  of  wages  and  of 
time  while  upon  duty,  should  furnish  arms,  and  equipment;?  for  them- 
selves. You  abdicate  your  high  constitutional  duty  to  organize  and 
discipline  the  militia.  Is  it  not,  then,  just  as  little  as  you  can  do  to 
provide  arras  for  these  volunteers  who  are  in  a  sort  of  actual  service  ? 
Sir,  it  was  for  this  very  purpose  that  your  armories  were,  in  part, 
originally  established,  and  afterwards  greatly  enlarged.  Upon  this 
point,  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  his  annual  message  of  November,  1808,  said: 

"Under  the  acts  of  MarclilOand  April  33,  respecting  arms,  the  difficulty  of  pro- 
curing them  from  abroad  during  the  present  situation  and  disposition  of  Europe, 
induced  us  to  direct  our  whole  efforts  to  the  means  of  internal  supply.  The  public 
factories  have,  therefore,  been  enlarged,  additional  machinery  erected,  and  in  pro- 
portion as  artificers  can  be  fouiid  or  formed,  their  effect,  already  more  than  doubled, 
may  be  increased  so  as  to  keep  pace  vnth  the  yearly  increase  of  the  militia.'''' 

And  yet,  sir,  so  far  from  carrying  out  the  purpose  for  which  your 
public  factories,  if  not  established,  were  at  least  enlarged,  and  even  then 
more  than  doubled.  Congress  has  permitted  them  to  be  used  almost 
wholly  to  supply  the  demands  of  the  regular  Army ;  and  the  annual 
appropriation,  instead  of  being  made  to  keep  pace  with  the  yearly 
increase  of  the  militia,  remains  now  in  this,  the  fifty-second  year  from 
the  date  of  the  act,  still  at  the  $200,000  at  which  it  was  first  estab- 
lished. 

Sir,  Congress  has  been  utterly  derelict  in  its  duty,  and  in  every  par- 
ticular, in  regard  to  the  militia ;  and,  by  your  neglect,  you  have  forced 
the  States  to  organize  and  discipline,  and  now,  at  last,  to  appropriate 
money  out  of  their  own  treasuries  for  the  purchase  of  arms.  Virginia 
has  done  it ;  and  Maryland,  the  other  day,  appropriated  $70,000  for 
that  purpose.  I  repeat,  that  this  is  unjust,  burdensome,  and  oppressive. 
But  if  you  will  abdicate  your  power  and  your  duty  in  this  particular,  at 
least  give  your  consent — and  the  Constitution  provides  for  it — that  each 
State  may  "  keep  troops  and  ships-of-war  in  time  of  peace,"  and  thus 
may  participate,  to  some  extent,  at  least,  in  this  the  highest  exercise  of 
sovereignty  known  to  independent  States. 


236  vallandigham's  speeches, 

remarks  on  tlik  "hour  rule." 

In  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  15,  1860. 

I  WILL  detain  the  committee  but  a  few  minutes.  I  do  not  propose  to 
discuss  the  subject  ax  lent^th.  I  am  not  ambitious  of  the  character  of  a 
reformer.  But  I  am  sure  that  wise  and  wliolesomc  reforms  arc  needed 
in  the  rules  of  this  House.  I  object  to  the  report  of  the  committee, 
that  it  is  not  sufficiently  radical ;  it  does  not  go  far  enough.  In  my 
deliberate  judgment,  he  would  be  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors  of  the 
legislation  of  this  Government,  who  would  introduce  and  carry  tlirough 
a  proposition  to  abolish  the  whole  system  of  rules  and  of  practice  under 
them,  and  allow  a  return  to  the  equitable  and  common-sense  law  and 
usages  of  Parliament.  Our  system,  sir,  is  not  half  so  democratic — not 
half  so  republican,  if  you  please — as  that  which  obtains  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  There,  every  member  who  can  catch  the  eye  of  the  Speaker 
is  at  liberty  to  propose  a  measure,  and  address  the  House  in  support  of 
it  as  long  as  the  patience  of  the  House  will  tolerate  liis  speech,  or  his 
own  good  sense  allow  him  to  proceed.  He  may  move  for  leave  to  intro- 
duce a  bill,  and  if  the  House  look  so  far  favorably  upon  the  proposition  as 
to  grant  that  leave,  he  is  then,  by  parliamentary  usage,  the  chairman  of 
the  select  committee  appointed  to  bring  it  in,  and  is,  by  virtue  of  that 
chairmanship,  invested  with  the  same  privileges  which  are  extended  to 
chairmen  of  standing  committees  here.  Thus,  sir,  is  equality  there 
accorded  to  every  member,  and  an  equal  chance  to  participate  in  the 
business  of  legislation. 

But  how  is  it  here  ?  Your  Speaker,  whatever  his  natural  disposition 
may  be,  is,  by  the  necessities  of  his  office,  a  despot.  Your  rules  make 
him  a  despot.  And  the  chairmen  of  your  twenty-eight  committees  are 
but  twenty-eight  sub-despots,  acting  under  him.  They  are  entitled  by 
the  custom  of  the  House  to  be  recognized  by  the  Speaker  in  preference 
to  2ixi)i  other  member,  whenever  the  measures  which  they  have  severally 
reported  are  pending.  No  proposition  can  be  introduced  here,  unless 
by  unanimous  consent  or  a  suspension  of  the  rules,  except  from  a  com- 
mittee. The  result  is,  that  to  the  hands  alone  of  the  privileged  few 
who  are  chairmen  of  the  committees',  is  consigned  the  whole  trade  and 
mystery  of  legislation  here.  Our  business,  sir,  is  to  register  the  decrees 
of  committees.  And  twenty-eight  men,  or  rather,  looking  to  the  more 
important  committees,  eight  or  ten  out  of  the  twenty-eight,  are  the 
organs  or  mo-uth-pieces  of  this  House.  They  are  the  engineers  and  con- 
ductors who  run  this  train,  and  generally  it  is  a  "  lightning  express 
train,"  and  we,  the  other  members,  are  but  passengers,  with  checks  in 
our  hats.     I  repeat,  then,  that  it  would  be  a  wise  and  most  wholesome 


oisr  THE  "hour  eule."  237 

reform  to  abolish  all  these  rules,  worse  now  than  the  early  Eoman  forms 
of  action  or  English  special  pleading,  and  return  to  the  ancient  and 
well-tried  parliamentary  law  and  usage,  allowing  every  member  to  intro- 
duce whatever  proposition  he  may  please  to  introduce — as  Mr.  Burke 
did  his  celebrated  measure  for  economical  reform — and,  at  least,  lay 
before  the  House  and  the  country  his  exposition  of  the  principles  upon 
which  the  measure  is  based,  whether  the  House  give  its  consent  that  he 
may  bring  in  a  bill  or  not. 

But  I  rose,  Mr.  Chairman,  mainly  to  urge  the  adoption  of  the  amend- 
ment which  I  have  proposed.    I  would  prefer — if  written  speeches  could 
be  prohibited  altogether — that  the  hour  rule  should  be  entirely  abro- 
gated.    But  apprehensive  that  the  committee  may  not  consent  to  go 
that  faj"  directly,  I  propose  now  only  to  mitigate  the  evil.     No  one,  I 
think,  who  has  observed  and  reflected  upon  the  business  of  legislation 
here  for  some  years  past,  will  deny  that  very  many  of  the  evils  of  which 
the   country  has  so  much  and   so  justly  complained,  and  which  have 
contributed  so  much  to  bring  this  House  into  disrepute,  have  arisrei^ 
from  the  operation  of  this  very  hour  rule.     I  might,  did  time  permit, 
go  back  to  the  history  of  the  past,  and  demonstrate  the  uniform  and 
inevitable  mischief  resulting  from  that  rule  wherever  it  has  obtained. 
At  Athens,  in  her  legislative  assembly,  there  was  no  limit  to  public  de- 
bate,  and  hence  those  splendid  remains  of  Grecian   eloquence  which 
challenge  the  admiration  of  the  world  to  this  day.     But  in  the  judicial 
courts  of  Athens  the  rule  did  prevail ;  the  "  clepsydra"  cut  down  the 
orator  in  the  midst  of  his  address,  and,  by  consequence,  forensic  elo- 
quence attained  but  small  importance  in  Greece,  and  but  little  which  is 
known  or  read  remains  of  it  to  this  day.     The  "  hour  rule"  precluded 
advocates,  and  the  want  of  advocates  dwarfed  the  forum  and  the  juris- 
prudence of  Athens  into  comparative   insignificance.      Demosthenes, 
who  "  fulmined"  in  the  public  assemblies  of  that  renowned  city,  shrank 
at  the  bar  into  a  mere  writer  of  speeches  for  litigants  to  read.     Limita- 
tion upon  debate  was  not  known  in  the  Roman  Senate  or  at  the  Roman 
bar  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Republic  ;  but  as  she  began  to  fall  into 
decay,  and  wicked  emperors  succeeded  to  the  seats  of  virtuous  consuls, 
the  "hour  rule"  was  applied  in  judicial  trials,  and  it  is  the  testimony 
of  Tacitus  and  Pliny,  that  from  that  moment  forensic  eloquence  perished. 
Despotism  thirsted  for  treasure  or  for  blood,  and  free  speech  was  no 
longer  tolerated  at  her  bar.     Dispatch  is  the  great  weapon  of  tyranny. 
But  I  come  down  to  our  own  times,  and  ask  of  the  older  members 
of  the  House,  whether  the  effect  of  this  rule  here  has  not  been  unmixed 
evil  ?     I  am  well  aware  that  the  usual  argument  urged  in  support  of  the 
limitation  is,  that  it  diminishes  the  quantum  of  debate.     Is  that  a  con- 
sideration, I  ask,  fit  to  be  urged   in  a  deliberative  assembly  ?      Why 


238  valla]S'^digham's  speeches. 

t 

protect  members  from  question  for  words  spoken  in  debate,  if  no  debate 
is  to  be  allowed,  or  even  if  it  be  an  object  to  suppress  or  to  limit  it  ? 
But  I  deny  the  fact.  I  affirm,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  aggregate 
amount  of  speaking  has  been  vastly  increased  by  it.  I  shall  say  noth- 
ing myself  of  the  quality  of  the  speaking ;  but  I  have  the  authority  of 
a  predecessor  of  mine  (Mr,  Schenck),  who  served  some  eight  years  in 
this  House,  and  who  has  been  eight  years  now  a  citizen  in  private  life, 
observing  the  course  of  debate  and  legislation  here,  for  the  statement, 
as  the  result  of  his  sixteen  years'  observation,  that  the  speaking  in  this 
House  has  very  much  increased  in  quantity,  and  very  greatly  deterio- 
rated in  quality,  since  the  adoption  of  the  hour  rule.  Sir,  the  rule 
was  assailed  vehemently  by  Mr.  Benion,  in  his  Thirty  Years'  View, 
and  I  refer  gentlemen  to  his  observations  upon  it.  Mr.  Calhoun  also 
denounced  it  as  "  destroying  the  liberties  of  the  people  by  gagging  their 
Representatives;"  and  Mr.  William  R.  King  declared  that  he  would 
resist  it  in  the  Senate  "  even  unto  the  death."  In  the  House  it  was  op- 
posed persistently  by  many  of  the-oldest  and  ablest  members,  and  among 
them,  by  John  Quincy  Adams. 

I  propose,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  hour  rule  shall  be  limited  in  its 
application  only  to  speeches  which  are  read.  According  to  the  law  of 
this  House,  as  laid  down  in  the  Manual,  no  member  has  a  right  now  to 
read  a  speech  if  it  be  objected  to ;  but  courtesy  will  not  tolerate  an  ob- 
jection. So  long  has  the  custom  prevailed,  and  to  such  an  extent  has 
it  been  carried,  that  it  would  be  regarded,  doubtless,  as  highly  dis- 
courteous to  demand  an  enforcement  of  the  rule.  Now,  1  believe  that 
this  proposed  amendment  will  prove  a  wise  provision ;  and  that,  by  re- 
moving the  restriction,  or  confining  it  rather  to  essays  read  in  tbis 
House,  a  premium  will  be  held  out  to  legitimate  debate,  which  I  long  to 
see  restored  in  this  Chamber,  to  take  the  place  of  those  carefully-pre- 
pared, elaborately-constructed,  and,  for  the  most  part,  elegant h"-written 
lectures  which  so  often  weary  the  patience  of  the  House,  admirable  as 
they  may  be — for,  sir,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  join  in  the  false  and 
senseless  outcry  that  the  speeches  which  are  read,  or  spoken  upon  this 
floor,  are  mere  "trash."  This,  sir,  is  an  accusation  unjust  and  unfounded. 
But  these  essays  or  lectures  are  not  fit  for  this  presence ;  they  are  not 
delivered  in  the  proper  place.  They  belong  to  the  lyceum,  and  not  to 
legislation. 

Allow  me,  sir,  to  refer,  by  way  of  illustration  of  the  evil  of  which  I 
complain,  to  what  occurred  when  the  gentleman  from  Alabama  (Mr. 
Curry)  had  concluded  his  very  earnest  and  elaborate  speech  yesterday. 
The  House  was  on  fire,  and  eager  for  the  debate  to  proceed.  You, 
yourself,  Mr.  Chairman  (Mr.  Stanton),  rose  to  reply  upon  the  spur  of 
the  moment ;  and  had  the  floor  been  given  you,  we  should  have  had,  I 


ON   THE    "  HOUE    EULE.  239 

doubt  not,  one  of  those  interesting  and  exciting  debates,  so  biglily 
dradiatic  in  their  character,  which  are  now  heard  only  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  or  in  the  ParUament  of  Great  Britain  ;  but  Avhich, 
sir,  in  an  evil  hour  for  the  legislation  of  the  country,  have  almost  wholly 
disappeared  from  this  Chamber,  and  linger  only  in  the  memory  or  the 
records  of  the  past.  Yet,  under  the  custom,  more  honored  in  the  breach 
than  the  observance,  which  has  grown  up  under  the  hour  rule,  and 
■which  is  one  of  its  most  odious  excrescences,  the  Chairman  had  his  roll 
of  membe.rs  prepared  long  time  in  advance.  You,  sir,  were  not  upon 
that  roll ;  or,  if  upon  it,  not  next  in  order.  You  rose  first  and  were 
recognized.  But  the  Chairman's  promise  was  out,  and  the  gentleman 
set  down  in  the  programme,  claimed  "  specific  performance."  You 
yielded,  and  he  proceeded  amid  great  disorder,  and  very  soon  to  empty 
benches,  to  read  a  speech,  which,  if  spoken,  would  have  commanded,  as 
it  deserved,  the  closest  attention.  They  who  had  listened  with  interest 
so  intense  to  the  oral  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Alabama  (Mr. 
Curry),  crowding  these  seats  in  silence  even  beyond  the  allotted  hour 
— for  you  relaxed  the  rule  by  unanimous  consent  in  his  favor — imme- 
diately, at  the  very  sight  of  the  manuscript,  fled  from  the  Hall,  and 
retired  to  their  boarding-houses.  And  when  the  committee  rose  last 
night  there  were  but  five  members  present  in  all  this  vast  Chamber. 

I  appeal  for  a  moment  here,  Mr.  Chairman,  upon  the  point  of  the 
alleged  abuse  of  unlimited  debate,  to  the  experience  of  this  House,  not 
only  previous  to  the  adoption  of  the  hour  rule,  but  during  the  interreg- 
num of  eight  weeks  which  occurred  at  the  commencement  of  this  ses- 
sion. Was  the  patience  of  the  House  ever  abused  more  than  once, 
at  most  ?  Sir,  we  had  but  two  speeches  of  really  inordinate  length — 
very  able  ones,  indeed — within  that  period ;  and  one  of  them,  at  least, 
I  am  sure,  Qommanded  the  attention  of  the  whole  House,  as  fully  and 
intensely  throughout  as  any  speech  which  has  been  delivered  within 
this  Capitol  for  more  than  twenty  years.  The  average  length  of  the 
speeches  during  those  eight  weeks  of  unrestricted  debate — and  I  have 
made  an  estimate  fairly — did  not  exceed  from  half  an  hour  to  forty 
ipinutes.  Very  many  of  them  did  not  equal  half  that  limit.  And  yet 
we  had  no  hour  rule  then ;  but  had  it  been  in  force,  every  member  who 
obtained  the  floor  would  have  felt  himself  under  an  imperious  necessity 
of  spcaldng  full  an  hour,  lest  he  should  be  deemed  to  have  "  broken 
down."  And  that,  sir,  is  precisely  the  evil  which  afilicts  us  now  under 
its  operation. 

Yet  another  grievance  growing  out  of  this  rule,  is  the  persistent  and 
offensive  interruptions  to  which  every  member  upon  the  floor  is  sub- 
jected. No  one  can  arise  and  address  *he  House  for  a  moment,  but 
some  gentleman  interposes,  not  upon  a  point  of  order,  not  for  personal 


240  vallandigham's  speeches. 

explanation,  but  that  tlic  inembcr  who  intcrnipts  may  propoiind  an  inter- 
rogatory to  the  member  interrupted,  and  thus  thrust  him  into  the' wit- 
ness-box to  extract  from  him,  by  a  process  of  cross-examination,  some- 
thing* not  at  all  relevant  to  the  subject;  or  perhaps  to  interpolate  a 
speech  of  his  own.  Sir,  this  happens  here,  and  it  happens  every  day  ; 
because  the  rules  of  politeness,  which  prevail  in  conversation  and  in 
social  intercourse,  are  forgotten  in  this  House.  Nothing  was  once,  and 
perhaps  is  still,  deemed  more  rude  than  to  interrupt  a  gentleman  ia 
conversation,  at  least  in  the  midst  of  a  sentence ;  yet  it  is  continually 
done  here.  And  it  is  done  because  members  are  anxious  to  speak, 
Avhethcr  prepared  to  speak  or  not ;  and  the  best  opportunity  to 
"  catch  the  Chairman's  eye,"  is  when  there  is  but  one  member  upon  the 
floor,  and  no  one  struggling  for  it.  Then  it  can  be  secured.  Thus  it  is 
that  speeches  by  one  member  are  thrust  into  the  speeches  of  another 
member,  to  go  out  with  them.  It  is  done  sometimes,  perhaps,  to  divert 
the  attention  of  a  gentleman  from  the  subject  he  is  discussing,  or  to 
extract  from  him  some  troublesome  answer  relating  to  a  personal  matter 
or  opinion,  it  may  be,  wholly  foreign  to  the  business  of  legislation. 
This  is  an  evil  grievous  to  be  borne,  and  I  think  it  is  the  result  very 
much  of  the  hour  rule — certainly  it  is  a  part  of  the  system  of  evils  which 
have  grown  up  since  the  adoption  of  that  rule. 

It  may  be  that  the  solution  proposed  by  the  gentleman  from  Missis- 
sippi (Mr.  McRae)  is  correct ;  that  there  are  so  many  gentlemen  upon 
the  floor  who  think  themselves  so  much  better  "  posted''  than  the  par- 
ticular member  speaking,  that  they  are  anxious  to  communicate  some 
portion  of  the  valuable  surplus  of  their  information  to  that  member,  or 
rather,  perhaps,  through  him  to  the  country. 

Certainly,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  do  not  intend  to  apply  these  remarks 
personally  to  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  (Mr.  Bocock),  who  sought 
two  or  three  times  to  interrupt  me  some  time  ago.  No,  sir;  they  are 
the  result  of  close  observation  and  reflection  upon  what  I  have  seen  and 
heard  from  the  time  I  first  had  the  honor  of  a  seat  upon  this  floor. 

[Mr.  Bocock,  of  Yirgi-nia,  here  made  some  remarks  in  reply,  after 
which  Mr.  Vallandig HAM  resumed  as  follows  :] 

The  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  would  no  doubt  have 
been  very  captivating  in  the  region  of  Appomatox  and  upon  "  the 
stump"  anywhere  [laughter] ;  but  surely  it  was  quite  inajipropriate 
here  ;  indeed,  I  ask  no  better  practical  illustraticm  to  enforce  what  I  said 
a  few  moments  ago  than  this  entire  interruption  from  a  gentleman  who 
has  served  in  the  House  now  these  ten  years,  and,  I  fear,  has  fallen  into 
all  its  bad  habits. 

In  reply  to  his  last  observtt^ion,  I  will  tell  him  how  it  comes  that  our 
speeches  are  of  a  character  totally  different  from  legitimate  debate,  and 


ON   THE    "HOUE    EULE."  f:4l 

why  members  prepare  speeches  in  writing  because  of  the  hour  rule.  It 
is  important,  of  course,  for  every  member  to  compress  as  much  as  is 
possible  within  that  limit.  Every  man  knows  in  his  own  experience 
that  he  can  condense  an  amount  of  matter  within  an  hour  when  he 
writes,  which  it  would  requite  an  hour  and  a  half  to  deliver  orally.  Yet, 
for  one,  I  must  say,  in  passing,  I  would  rather  listen  to  the  dullest  speech 
from  any  member  here  for  two  hours,  orally  delivered,  than  to  sit  for 
one  hour  under  the  infliction  of  the  finest  and  best  composed  essay  ever 
read  in  the  House. 

The  gentleman  from  Virginia  has  read  me  a  lecture  on  democracy, 
monarchy,  republicanism,  and  the  other  forms  of  government.     Sir,  he 
himself  stands  here  to-day  the   advocate  of  despotism.     He  is  upon 
this  floor  defending  a  rule,  the  whole  purpose  and  tendency  of  which  is 
to  prevent  the  free  and  legitimate  deliberation  and  debate,  so  essential  a 
part   of  legislation.     But,    in   speaking    of  the    previous    question,  he 
himself  forgot  the  very  wide  diiference  between  that   question    as    it 
obtains    here    and   in    Great   Britain.     In    Parliament   it  is   used   for 
the  purpose  of  removing  a  subject  from  before  the  House,  so  that  there 
shall  be  neither  vote  nor  debate  upon  it.     Here  it  is  employed  solely 
for-the  purpose  of  bringing  the  House  to  vote  directly  upon  the  propo- 
sition, and  without  debate  at  all.     Now,  if  we  should  return  to  par- 
liamentary usage,  of  course  we  would  go  back  also  to  the  ancient  and 
legitimate  use  of  the  previous  question,  and  abandon  the  dangerous  and 
tyrannic  perversion  and  abuse  of  it  which  have  grown  up  under  our  own 
system.     And  yet,  limited  and  comparatively  innocuous  as  it  is  there, 
the  previous  question  has  not  been  resorted  to  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons for  many  yeare ;  and  a  motion,  in  1849,  to  limit  speeches  in  Par- 
liament to  one  hour,  was  rejected.     And  just  here  allow  me  to  add,  that 
no  legislative  body,  anywhere,  or  at  any  time,  in  a  free  country,  except 
the    House    of  Keprcsentatives    assembled   in   this    Capitol,    has   ever 
submitted  to  this  most  mischievous  restriction  upon  the  freedom   of 
debate. 

The  gentleman  finds  an  apology,  sir,  for  all  these  most  vexatious 
restrictions  and  intricacies  in  the  rules  which  preclude  a  member 
from  bringing  forward  business,  or  discussing  it  when  it  is  brought  for- 
ward, in  the  number  of  Representatives  of  which  this  House  consists. 
Sir,  does  he  forget  that  the  British  House  of  Commons  is  composed  of 
six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  members,  and  yet  that  more  business  is 
transacted  there  in  two  or  three  days  than  by  this  House  in  six  weeks ; 
and  that,  too,  usually  there  in  a  full  House.  It  is  very  true  that 
forty  members  constitute  a  quorum  for  the  transaction  of  business; 
and  that  private  business,  that  in  which  the  whole  empire  is  not 
interested,  is  usually  passed  upon  in  a  thin  House ;  but  whc  never 
16 


242  vallandigham's  speeches. 

any  great  question  is  pending  before  Parliament,  the  House  is  full,  luid 
the  members  are  nearly  all  present.  Even  the  very  important  corain>.'r- 
cial  treaty  recently  concluded  between  France  and  Great  Britain  was 
discussed  and  disposed  of  by  the  first  oratore  and  statesnien  of  Par- 
liament, in  two  nights,  only  some  few  weefet  since.  How  long  would  it 
have  occupied  this  House  ?  How  much  time  do  we  usually  consume  in 
discussing  great  public  questions  ?  The  debate  on  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill,  including  the  reading  of  essays,  was  continued  for  six  or  eight 
weeks.  The  discussion  upon  the  Lecompton  constitution,  in  which 
from  one  hundred  and  seventy  to  two  hundred  speeches  were  delivered 
or  read,  occupied  the  time,  if  not  the  attention,  of  the  House  from 
the  16th  of  December  until  the  30th  of  April.  And  why  is  this? 
Because  we  have  no  legitimate  debate.  The  speech  of  one  member 
does  not  follow  that  of  another.  One  set  of  idea.s  or  arguments  are  not 
provoked  by  another  set  urged  by  the  speaker  who  preceded.  We 
hear  none,  and  have  none,  of  that  kind  of  debate.  Disconnected 
lectures,  written  weeks  before,  and  concealed  in  the  desks  of  members, 
are  continually  produced  here,  and  read  to  empty  benches,  and  yet 
go  forth  to  the  country  as  speeches  which  thrill  the  hearts  of  members 
and  of  those  who  throne:  our  fralleries. 

Sir,  I  remember,  as  an  illustration  this  moment  occurring  to  me,  that 
a  member  from  Illinois  (Mr.  Lovejoy)  read  an  essay  upon  this  floor,  in 
the  month  of  February  one  year  ago,  late  at  night,  to  three  members 
and  five  pages  [laughter]  ;  yet  the  next  day  it  was  telegraphed  to  a  lead- 
ing paper  in  the  city  of  New  York,  as  one  of  the  most  thrilling 
speeches  ever  delivered  in  the  House  ;  remarkable,  especially,  for  its 
fearlessness,  and  the  boldness  of  its  denunciation  [renewed  laughter],  and 
perfectly  electrifying  every  one  present.  Now,  is  it  not  time  that 
this  evil  was  remedied  ?  I  repeat  again,  that  the  quantum  of  speaking 
will  not  be  increased  by  the  abrogation  of  the  hour  rule ;  the  number  of 
pages  which  make  up  your  Congressional  Globe  will  not  be  multiplied ; 
and  what  difi'erence  is  it  to  us  or  to  the  country,  whether  one 
man  shall  speak  for  two  hours,  or  two  men  shall  speak  for  one 
hour  each  ?  It  may  be  of  some  moment  to  our  particular  con- 
stituencies ;  but  it  is  of  none  to  the  whole  country.  Let  gentlemen 
who  would  discuss  mere  partisan  or  local  topics,  go  back  to  the  ancient 
usage  which  prevailed  souie  forty  years  ago,  of  publishing  addresses 
upon  such  questions  to  their  constituents.  Let  us  agree  henceforth 
that  what  is  said  upon  the  floor  here  .shall  relate  to  the  great  measures 
of  public  policy  and  legislation  which  may  come  before  us  and 
not  to  mere  fleeting  and  temporary  subjects  of  oontrovensy  between 
parties.  No  reform  which  we  can  devise  will  tend  so  far  to  bring 
the    House    back   to    its    ancient   diimitv    and    decorum,  and  to  that 


ON   THE    "  HOUR    EULE."  243 

high  repute    which  belonged   to    it   in    the  earlier   days    of    the  Re- 
public. 

I  desire  to  call  the  attention  of  the  committee  to  the  fact  that 
for  thirty  years  after  the  organization  of  this  Government,  the 
Senate  was  not  the  centre  of  attraction.  It  was  the  Hoiise  upon 
which  the  eyes  of  the  country  were  turned.  It  was  here,  sir, 
that  in  those  days  there  were  gathered  an  Ames,  a  Madison,  an 
Ellsworth,  a  Randolph,  a  Sherman,  and  others  of  a  like  fame,  who  have 
made  the  history  of  our  country  illustrious.  But,  for  thirty  years  now, 
and  especially  within  the  twenty  years  past,  since  the  adoption  of 
the  hour  rule,  along  with  other  evils,  the  importance  and  even 
the  equality  of  the  House  has  been  lost ;  and  it  is  the  Senate  whose  gal- 
leries the  people  throng  now ;  it  is  the  Senate  which  has  drawn  upon  it- 
self the  chief  attention  of  the  country ;  it  is  the  debates  in  the  Senate  for 
which  the  public  look ;  it  is  the  speeches  delivered  in  the  Senate  which 
circulate  throughout  the  land ;  and,  finally,  it  is  the  Senate,  as  the  gen- 
tleman from  Virginia  [Mr.  Garnett]  suggested,  which  is  not  only 
absorbing  all  the  legislation  of  the  country,  but  is  moulding  that  public 
opinion  which  controls  the  Government.  Is  it  not  apparent  then,  I  ask, 
that  there  should  be  found,  and  right  speedily,  a  remedy  for  the  disre- 
pute into  which  this  House  has  fallen  ?  What  that  remedy  may  be,  I 
leave  to  your  wisdom,  gentlemen,  to  devise ;  but,  I  repeat,  that  the 
abrogation  of  the  hour  rule  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  first  and  a  most 
important  step  in  that  direction. 

Mr.  Cox.  I  wish  to  ask  my  colleague  a  single  question.  He  seems 
to  have  taken  the  British  House  of  Couimous  as  his  model  of 
a  parliamentary  body. 

Mr.    Vallandigham.     Not    altogether,   although    this  House   was 
certainly  modelled  after  it, 

Mr.  Cox.  3Iy  colleague  has,  no  doubt,  read  in  Ten  Thousand 
a  Year,  of  one  Tittlebat  Titmouse,  who  broke  down  a  ministry  by  crow- 
ing at  an  inopportune  time.  [Laughter.]  I  suppose  that,  to  carry  our 
the  system  in  this  House,  it  should  be  the  duty  of  the  Speaker 
to  appoint  persons  who  are  to  perform  that  duty.  But,  as  my 
colleague  refers  to  classic  authorities,  I  ask  him  whether  it  was  not  true 
that  the  hour  rule  always  prevailed  in  the  Roman  Senate  ? 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     Certainly  not. 

Mr.  Cox.  I  ask  .  if  it  was  not  extraordinary  that  those  great 
declamations  of  Demosthenes  and  ^Eschines  always  came  out  in  exactly 
sixty  minutes  ? 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  My  colleague  is,  as  Titmouse  would  say, 
a  most  "  respectable  gent ;"  and  no  doubt  the  incident  to  which  he  has 
referred  in  that  gentleman's  parliamentary  career,  illustrating  his  powers 


244  vallandigham's  speeches. 

of  crowing,  was  called  to  mind  by  the  similarity  between  my  colleague's 
name,  and  the  barn-yard  fowl  called 

"  Chanticleer,  who  wakes  the  mom." 

He  is  the  very  bird  for  the  new  office  he  proposes.  [Laughter.]  But  I 
rejrrot  that  he  has  exhibited  such  lamentable  forgetful n ess  at  least,  in 
regard  to  the  Roman  and  Grecian  eloquence,  to  which  I  had  made 
allusion  by  way  of  illustration.  If  he  had  recently  read  the  speeches 
of  Demosthenes  and  ^schines,  to  which  he  refers,  hewould  not  have 
asked  whether  they  were  not  spoken  in  sixty  minutes.  Certainly  they 
cannot  now  be  read  in  two  hours,  and  that  without  including  the  docu- 
ments quoted  by  the  orators. 

Mr.  Cpx.  That  depends  upon  whether  they  are  read  in  the  original. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  I  do  not  profess  to  be  as  familiar  with 
Greece  as  my  colleague.  He  has  seen  the  "  isles  of  Greece,"  visited  the 
classic  shores  of  Attica,  walked  the  streets  of  Athens,  and  stood 
upon  the  Acropolis.  I  have  not.  He  visited  Rome,  too ;  though 
I  may  not  speak  of  what  he  saw  or  heard  in  the  Eternal  City.  He  has 
written  it  in  a  book.  [Laughter.]  But  I  will  not  occupy  the  time 
of  the  committee  longer.  By  reason  of  the  very  evil  of  interruptions 
of  which  I  complained,  I  have  been  forced  to  speak  at  far  greater 
length  than  I  intended.     I  beg  pardon,  gentlemen.* 

*  Note  bt  Mr.  Vallasdigham. — Not  aware  that  the  report  on  the  rules  of 
the  Ho"Use  was  made  a  special  order  for  this  day,  and  obliged  to  speak,  therefore, 
without  recent  examination  of  the  subject,  I  append  now  certain  extracts  to 
which  I  would  otherwise  have  referred  in  my  remarks : 

1.  Many  of  the  extant  orations  written  by  Demosthenes  for  prosecutors  or  the 
accused,  were  in  State  trials  or  impeachments ;  and  some  of  them  in  support  of 
the  repeal  of  certain  laws,  as  for  example,  the  Leptinean  oration,  were  read  before 
"  committees,"  as  we  would  say  at  this  day.  A  longer  time  (if  indeed  there  were 
any  hmit),  it  would  seem,  was  allowed  in  such  cases. 

2.  The  first  example  of  limitation  of  time  for  argument  at  the  bar  in  Rome,  was  by 
Pompey,  upon  the  trial  of  Milo,  and  for  the  purpose  of  securing  his  conviction ;  but 
the  hmit  then  was  fixed  at  three  hours.  '  Under  the  Emperors  it  became  a  settled 
usage,  and  sometimes  two  hours,  sometimes  one  hour,  or  even  half  an  hour,  were 
allowed,  at  the  discretion  of  the  judge.  Pliny  assigns  as  the  reason,  that  "  the  ad- 
vocates grew  tired  before  the  business  was  explained,  and  the  judges  were  ready 
to  decide  before  they  understood  the  question."  And  he  asks,  and  the  inquiry  is 
just  as  pertinent  now,  "  Are  we  wiser  than  our  ancestors  ?  are  the  laws  more  just 
at  present  ?  Our  ancestors  allowed  many  hours,  many  days,  many  adjournments  in 
every  cause  ?  and,  for  my  part,  as  often  as  I  sit  in  judgment,  I  allow  as  much  time 
as  the  advocate  requires ;  for  would  it  not  be  rashness  to  guess  what  space  of  time 
is  necessary  in  a  cause  which  has  not  been  opened  ?  But  some  unnecessary  things 
may  be  said,  and  is  it  not  better  that  what  is  unnecessary  should  be  spoken,  than 
that  what  is  necessary  should  be  omitted  7     And  who  can  tell  what  is  necessary 


FKANKENG   PllIVILEGE.  245 

FRANKING   PRIVILEGE. 

December  6,  1860. 

Mr.  Vallandigham,  from  the  Select  Committee  of  Five  on  the  franking 
privilege  (Mr.  Charles  F.  Adams  and  Mr.  William  Kellogg  con- 
curring), made  the  following 

REPORT. 

Tlie  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  to  whom  was 
referred  Senate  bill  No.  35,  entitled  "^n  Act  tq  abolish  the  Franking 
Privilege,''''  have  had  the  same  under  consideration,  and  report :. 

This  bill  is  at  least  equal  and  exact,  inasmuch  as  it  proposes  to  prohibit 
the  transportation  of  any  free  matter  through  the  mail,  except  to  the 
widow  of  James  K.  Polk,  late  a  President  of  the  United  States,  cutting 
off  congressional  franks,  and  providing  no  means  for  the  payment  by 
government  of  postage  on  official  communications  of  any  kind.  It 
requires  every  officer,  civil,  military,  and  naval,  now  entitled  to  frank, 
from  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  deputy  postmasters,  to  pre- 
pay, out  of  hi*  own  money,  postage  on  all  matter  transmitted  upon 
official  business.  It  forbids  the  free  exchange  of  newspapers,  which  has 
been  admitted  by  law  or  regulation  since  1753,  and  proposes  thus,  by 
one  annihilating  act  of  six  lines,  full  of  manifest  haste  and  want  of  con- 
sideration, to  reverse  the  settled  policy  of  the  government  from  its 
beginning.  A  graver  question  is  seldom  submitted  to  Congress,  and 
duly  impressed  with  its  importance,  your  committee  has  given  anxious 
and  patient  attention  to  it. 

Though  the  post-office  system,  as  it  exists  at  this  day,  is  essentially  a 
modern  institution,  yet  posts  are  of  very  ancient  date,  and  in  every 
instance  have  been  either  established  or  regulated  by  the  State.  In 
Arabia  and  Persia  they  existed  long  before  the  Christian  era,  and  their 

till  he  has  heard  ?  Patience  ia  a  judge  ought  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the  chief 
branches  of  liis  duty,  as  it  certainly  is  of  justice."  (Book  6,  Epistle  2.)  These 
considerations  apply  still  more  strongly  to  debate  in  a  deliberative  assembly. 

3.  Cicero  says  in  his  "Brutus,"  that  he  never  heard  of  a  Lacedaemonian 
orator,  and  adds,  "  brevity,  upon  some  occasions,  is  a  real  excellence  ;  but  it  is  very 
far  from  being  compatible  with  the  general  character  of  eloquence." 

i.  Referring  to  the  adoption  of  the  hour  rule  by  the  House,  July  7,  1841,  Mr. 
Benton  says : 

"  This  session  is  remarkable  for  the  institution  of  the  hour  rul,e  in  the  House  of 
Representatives — the  largest  limitation  upon  the  freedom  of  debate  which  any  delibe- 
rative assembly  ever  imposed  upon  itself,  and  presents  an  eminent  instance  of 
permanent  injury  done  to  free  institutions  in  order  to  get  rid  of  a  temporary  annoy- 
ance."— 2  Benton's  View,  247. 


246  VALLANDIGIIA3l's    SPEECHES. 

speed,  in  Oriental  figure  of  speech,  was  outstripped  only  by  tlie  flight 
of  time.  Under  the  Roman  emperors  the  postal  system  was,  as  to 
expedition  at  least,  brought  to  great  perfection,  and  Tiberius  was  accus- 
tomed to  iiidignantjy  reject  all  dispatches  which  had  been  longer  on  the 
way  than  twenty  days  from  the  extremcst  provinces  of  Asia.  In  the 
middle  ages,  also,  posts  were  established  in  various  countries  of  Europe, 
and  in  Peru,  at  its  discovery  in  1527,  the  orders  of  the  Inca  were  regu- 
larly dispatched  by  couriers  posted  at  convenient  distances  along  the 
principal  highways.  In  India  also,  and  earlier  still  in  Tartary,  a  po'tal 
system  existed  which,  in  the  latter  country,  was  very  extensive  and  com- 
plete. And  at  this  day  the  post-office  is  an  established  institution  of 
every  State  in  Europe  and  America,  and  in  all  it  is  under  the  control 
of  government.  More  than  this,  it  has  in  almost  every  instance  been 
first  established  by  the  State  for  its  own  exclusive  service  in  the  trans- 
mission of  public  dispatches  and  other  official  intelligence.  The  use 
of  it  by  private  persons  has,  for  the  most  part,  been  an  incident  growing 
up  under  it,  first  from  the  necessities  or  conveniences  of  trade  and  com- 
merce or  of  social  correspondence,  and  ultimately  for  the  sake  of  income 
to  the  State  ;  and  Blackstone  treats  of  it  in  his  Commentaries  as  a 
fixed  and  important  part  of  the  King's  revenue.  In  no  country  is  post- 
age paid  on  public  dispatches  or  communications  by  government  officers 
out  of  their  own  private  means.  Even  in  Great  Britain  the  abolition 
of  franks  in  1839  extended  only  to  parliamentary  and  not  to  executive 
franking. 

Within  a  few  years  after  the  first  British  settlements  in  America,  posts 
were  established  by  the  legislatures  of  several  of  the  colonies.  In  1039, 
by  authority  of  the  general  court  of  Massachusetts,  a  postmaster  was 
appointed  in  Boston;  and  in  1657,  Virginia  provided  for  the  transmis- 
sion by  each  planter,  under  the  penalty  of  a  hogshead  of  tobacco  (the 
currency  of  that  day),  of  government  dispatches  from  one  plantation  to 
another,  till  they  should  reach  the  place  of  their  destination.  One  of 
the  earliest  acts  of  William  Penn  was  the  establishment,  in  1683,  of  a 
post-office  in  Pennsylvania;  and  a  monthly  post  was  appointed,  in 
obedience  to  the  King's  command,  between  New  York  and  Boston,  in 
1672.  As  early  as  1692  a  postmaster-general  for  all  the  colonies  was 
appointed  by  letters  patent,  with  power  to  erect  post-offices,  but  no 
efficient  system  was  established  till  1710,  when,  by  act  of  Parliament,  * 
the  postmaster-general  was  authorized  to  set  up  a  general  letter  office  in 
New  York  and  other  chief  offices  in  each  of  the  colonies.  Dr.  Franklin 
served  in  the  post-office  department  for  nearly  forty  years,  and  from 
1753  to  1774  was  postmaster-general  for  all  British  America,  during 
which  period  he  reduced  the  service  to  a  system,  and  fpr  the  first  time 
made  it  to  yield  a  revenue  to  the  government. 


FRANKING    PRIVILEGE.  247 

Throughout  the  war  of  the  revolution,  by  order  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  and  under  the  direction  of  postmaster-generals  appointed  by 
thorn,  postal  arrangements,  more  or  less  imperfect,  were  continued,  and 
the  Articles  of  Confederation,  ratified  finally  in  1781,  gave  to  Congress 
."the  sole  and  exclusive  right  and  power  of  establishing  and  regulating 
post-offices  from  one  State  to  another  throughout  the  United  States, 
and  exacting  such  postage  on  the  papers  passing  through  the  same  as 
might  be  requisite  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  office." 

The  convention  of  l78l  found  the  post-office  an  existing  institution, 
and  in  five  words  empowered  Congress  "to  establish  post-offices  and 
post-roads."  Under  this  express  grant,  and  the  power  to  make  "  all 
laws  necessary  and  proper"  for  carrying  it  into  execution,  has  grown  up 
that  vast  and  stupendous  system  of  postal  arrangements  by  which  intel- 
ligence of  every  kind,  political,  commercial,  social,  and  intellectual,  is 
transmitted  with  certainty,  safety,  and  speed  throughout  the  United 
States,  over  routes  estimated  at  260,000  miles  in  length,  with  an  annual 
mail  transportation  of  82,000,000  of  miles,  and  at  a  cost  of  nearly  ten 
millions  of  dollars. 

Why  was  it,  we  may  well  inquire,  that  the  Constitution  conferred  a 
power  so  peculiar  and  so  immense  ?  How  comes  it  that  any  government, 
above  all  that  a  republican  government,  founded  upon  the  fundamental 
principle  of  committing  nothing  to  government  which  the  individual 
man  ,can  as  well  accomplish,  is  the  sole  carrier  of  mail  matter,  and  yet 
carries  nothing  else  ?  Unquestionably  the  primary  reason  is  that  every 
State  has  the  right  to  provide  the  necessary  and  proper  means  of  com- 
municating to  public  officers,  and  in  a  popular-  government,  to  the 
people,  its  own  dispatches  and  other  public  intelligence.  The  State  has 
just  the  same  right  to  establish  and  control  the  machinery  used  for  this 
purpose  as  to  construct  and  own  the  arms  and  munitions  of  its  army, 
or  the  ships  and  equipments  of  its  navy,  or  the  buildings  necessary  for 
executive  and  legislative  purposes.  But  for  public  objects  the  power 
ought  never  to  have  been  given  ;  and  when  the  post-office  is  no  longer 
used  by  government,  except  in  the  same  way  and  upon  the  same  terms 
as  by  the  individual  citizen,  the  whole  of  this  costly  and  stupendous 
machinery,  with  all  its  vast  political  power  and  patronage,  ought  forth- 
with to  be  abolished.  As  well  might  the  government  be  required  to 
pay  the  market  price  for  the  arms  and  munitions  of  war  fabricated  at 
its  public  factories,  and  yet  these  factories  be  kept  up  for  the  purpose 
of  meeting  the  wants  of  private  citizens,  and  made  "  self-sustaining" 
by  the  means  thus  supplied.  As  well  might  government  be  required  to 
pay  passage  money  and  board  for  its  naval  officers  and  seamen,  in  order 
that  the  navy  may  be  made  "  self-sustaining"  by  the  transportation  of 
passengers,  for  fare,  from  one  port  to  another.     As  well  might  govern- 


248  vallandigham's  speeches. 

ment  pay  rent  for  its  own  court-houses  and  custom-houses  in  order  that 
the  treasury  and  tlie  judiciary  might  be  made  "self-sustaining"  by 
letting  these  buildings  to  private  persons  for  hire.  The  analogy  will 
be  complete  if  we  suppose  the  civil,  naval,  and  military  officers  to  be 
required,  in  each  case,  to  pay  out  of  their  private  funds  or  their  salaries 
the  several  expenses  thus  incurred. 

Your  committee  regard  the  post-office  as  strictly  a  department  of  the 
government  to  be  used  primarily  for  public  purposes,  and  differing  in  no 
essential  governmental  principle  from  any  other  department.  But 
private  citizens,  it  may  be  said,  do  not  use  the  other  executive  offices, 
including  the  army  and  the  navy,  for  private  purposes  :  how  comes  it, 
then,  that  the  post-office  is  an  exception  ?  The  reason  is  this :  any 
private  use  of  the  former  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  objects  for 
which  they  were  instituted  and  destructive  of  their  efficiency ;  but  the 
post-office  can  well  transport  the  mail  matter  of  private  persons  at  the 
same  time  as  that  of  the  government,  without  injur)-  or  inconvenience 
to  the  public  service,  and  by  exacting  sufficient  postage,  without  cost  to 
the  public  treasury. 

Certainly  the  nature  of  the  matter  transmitted  may  afford  some  reason 
why  its  transportation  should  be  under  the  supervision  of  government, 
and  by  machinery  provided  by  it.  Every  postal  system  from  the  begin- 
ning has  been  established  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  for  the  communication 
of  intelligence.  Under  our  own  system  nothing  else  is  "  mailable 
matter."  But  this  intelligence  is  in  the  form  of  written  or  printed 
packets,  and  to-day  bcith  letters  and  newspapers  are  transmitted,  along 
with  every  other  conceivable  subject  of  transportation,  by  private  express 
companies,  with  "  due  celerity,  certainty,  and  security,"  from  one  end 
of  the  Union  to  the  other. 

Another  reason,  perhaps,  why  the  power  to  establish  post-offices  and 
post-roads  was  committed  to  the  federal  government  was  the  necessity 
and  importance  of  preventing  vexatious  restrictions  and  annoyances  in 
the  transmission  of  intelligence  from  one  State  to  another.  This  has 
ever  been  an  evil  causing  no  small  mischief  in  the  German  confedera- 
tion. But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  same  difficulty  would  equally 
exist  in  the  transportation  of  goods,  and  of  every  other  article  usually 
intrusted  to  common  carriers ;  and  that  in  practice,  no  sort  of  incon- 
venience or  vexation  is  experienced  in  the  transmission  of  intelligence 
by  telegraph,  or  the  transportation  of  any  article  upon  the  railroad,  by 
express  or  otherwise,  from  one  State  through  another,  to  the  remotest 
section  of  the  United  States. 

Your  committee,  therefore,  are  of  opinion  that,  whereas  the  trans- 
mission of  government  dispatches  and  intelligence  was  the  primary 
object  of  the  establishment  of  the  post-office   system,  so  also,  it  is  still, 


FEANKING    PRIVILEGE.  249 

and  mucli  more  now  than  at  first,  the  chief  reason  which  justifies  itj 
continuance ;  and  that  whenever  it  ceases  to  be  a  department  of  State, 
to  be  used  in  the  exercise  and  execution  of  some  legitimate  and  neces- 
sary function  and  power  of  republican  government,  it  ought  to  be 
abolished. 

Certainly  the  State  might  employ  special  messengers  to  bear  all  ito 
dispatches  and  public  intelligence,  at  home,  as  it  now  does  on  important 
occasions,  or  to  countries  with  which  it  has  no  postal  arrangements 
abroad ;  and  these  messengers  would  be  paid  out  of  the  treasury,  but 
the  expense  would,  in  that  case,  be  an  intolerable  burden.  Or  the 
governmeht  might,  except  in  regard  to  matters  of  too  great  or  delicate 
concern,  intrust  its  communications,  if  it  were  wise  or  economical  so  to 
do,  to  private  carriers  or  express  companies,  just  as  it  now  does  to  the 
telegraph,  the  use  of  which  for  public  purposes  is  every  day  augmenting. 
But  here,  again,  the  expense  would  be  defrayed  out  of  the  public  funds. 
No  one,  in  either  case,  would  ask  that  the  several  officers  transmitting 
the  dispatches  or  intelligence  should  be  required  to  pay  the  expense  out 
of  their  own  means.  Why,  then,  when  the  government  has  organized 
a  permanent  establishment  for  its  own  service,  but  which,  for  general 
convenience  and  greater  security  and  speed,  private  citizens  are  allowed 
to  employ,  also,  for  their  own  individual  purposes,  shall  it  be  required,  to 
pay  for  the  transmission  of  its  own  intelligence  by  means  of  its  own  agen- 
cies and  machinery  ?  And  yet,  a£ter  all,  here  is  a  mere  dispute  about 
words,  or  rather  about  the  mode  of  payment.  Rejecting  the  proposition 
that  the  private  citizen  shall  be  taxed  a  higher  rate  of  postage  in  order  to 
defray  the  expense  of  the  transportation  of  government  mail  matter,  the 
real  question  is,  whether  the  State  shall  pay  directly  the  excess  of  the 
expenditures  of  the  Post-Office  Department  over  the  receipts  at  fair 
rates  of  postage  from  private  persons  using  it,  or  shall  pay  just  the  same 
amount  in  the  shape  of  postage,  at  such  rates  as  will  make  up  the 
'leficiency ;  in  other  words,  shall  government  keep  a  postage  account 
and  pay  it  out  of  the  general  treasury,  or  shall  it  transmit  its  official 
•lispatches  and  communications  free,  and  pay,  upon  another  form  of 
account,  the  increased  expenditures  of  the  Post-Office  Department — 
incurred  by  reason  of  such  free  mail  matter.  In  this  point  of  view, 
vour  committee  deem  the  controvei"sv  of  but  small  moment,  and  to  be 
determined  as  a  question  solely  of  convenience  and  economy ;  and  they 
are  clearly  of  opinion  that  upon  the  score  of  both  economy  and 
convenience  the  latter  mode  is  far  preferable.  This  is  the  question,  unless 
it  be  insisted  that  the  officers  or  agents  of  the  State  shall  pay  out  of 
their  own  salaries  or  private  fortunes,  if  any  they  may  have,  the  postage 
accounts  of  their  respective  offices.  But  if  out  of  their  salaries,  then 
t!ie  payment  is  at  last,  though  meanly  and  circuitously,  out  of  the  public 


250  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

treasury,  and  a  cfeneral  increase  of  salaries  would  be  the  final  and  inevi- 
table   result,  since  the   amount  so  put  into  the  treasury,  assuming  the   • 
estimate  of  the  Post-Office  Department  of  81,800,000  to  be  correct,  if 
assessed  upon   officials,  executive  and  legislative,  who   now  enjoy   the 
"  franking   privilege,"    would    essentially  diminish    the     compensation 
which  they  now  severally  receive.     If  the  payment  is  to  be  made  out 
of  their  own  private  means,  then  it  is  an  infraction  of  the  principles  of 
republican  government,  the   imposition  of  an   unjust  tax  upon  public 
servants,  and  an  exaction   without  example   in   any   other  instance  of 
governmental  administration.     Xo  less  reasonably  might  the  officers  of 
the  navy,  or  the  judiciary,  or  the  treasury",  be  required  also  to  provide 
from  their  own  fortunes,   ships  and  equipments,  or  court-houses  and 
custom-houses,  for  the  use  of  the  government.     And  why,  upon  the 
same  principle,  should  not  the  oflBcers  of  the  army  be  compelled  to  pay, 
in   the  same  manner,  for  the   cost  of  the  transportation  of  troops  and 
munitions  of  war  from  one  post  to  another?     The  true  rule  your  com- 
mittee understand  to  be  this :  every  expense  of  a  public  nature,  neces- 
sary to  the  faithful  and  efficient  discharge  of  public  duty,  the  govern- 
ment ought  to  pav  out  of  the  common  treasury,  because  the  expenditure 
is  for  the  common  good.    Unquestionably,  the  communication  of  orders 
and  other  public  intelligence  from  one  officer  to  another,  whether  a 
superior  or  subordinate,  is  not  only  a  part,  but  a  most   important  part, 
of  official  duty,  and   which,  indeed,,  especially   in  a  country  so  vast  in 
geographical  extent  as  ours,  is   indispensable  to  the  existence  of  the 
government  itself.     This  would  seem  to  be  too  clear  for  argument. 

Although  the  bill  referred  to  your  committee  prohibits  all  free  mat- 
ter, as  well  executive  as  congressional,  and  as  it  stands  now  would  require 
all  postage  on  government  communications  to  be  paid  by  officials  out 
of  their  own  means,  your  committee  are  slow  to  believe  that  such  an 
act  of  injustice  and  folly  was  seriously  intended.  They  assume  that  the 
purpose  of  the  friends  of  the  measure  is  to  abolish  congressional  franks 
altogether,  and  to  pay  official  or  executive  postage,  as  in  England,  out 
of  the  public  treasury.  To  pay  for  congressional  free  matter  in  the 
same  way  would  be  simply  a  proposed  reform,  and  not  an  abolition  of 
the  privilege.  And  if  both  be  placed  upon  the  same  footing,  nothing 
would  be  gained  to  the  common  treasury,  and  only  the  mode  of  paying 
the  general  expenses  of  the  postal  system  would  be  changed.  One 
department  of  government  would  buy  postage  stamps  from  another 
department  of  government  which  had  already  appropriated  for  the 
foi'mer  the  very  money  with  which  these  stamps  had  been  purchased, 
and  thus  the  old  fable  be  realized  of  the  two  lads  who,  shut  up  in  a 
dark  room,  amassed  a  fortune  each  by  exchanging  garments.  It  Ls  only 
by  requiring  all  private  persons  and  officials  who  use  the  post-office  to 


FEAXKXN'G    PEIVILEGE.  251 

pay  aliie  out  of  their  own  means  the  usual  and  necessary  postage  rates 
that  any  thing  is  to  be  really  saved  to  the  treasury.  And  this  rule,  youi 
committee  understand,  is  to  be  applied  only  to  members  of  the  legisla- 
tive department,  while  the  postage  of  the  executive,  though  the  more 
costly  of  the  two,  is  to  be  defrayed  out  of  the  general  fund.  Congress, 
with  marvellous  excess  of  patriotism,  is  to  enact  a  self-denying  ordi- 
nance, not  applicable  in  its  burdens  to  any  but  its  own  members. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  abolition  of  franks  is  to  be  limited  really  to 
congressional  communications  or  intelligence,  while  all  other  government 
mail  matter  is  to  be  carried  free  or  have  the  postage  upon  it  paid  out 
of  the  public  treasury,  your  committee  proceed  to  consider  whether,  in 
the  nature  of  our  system  of  government,  or  in  any  peculiar  or  accidental 
circumstances,  there  exists  any  reason  why  a  discrimination  should  in  this 
respect  be  made  against  the  legislative  department  and  its  members,  and 
in  favor  of  the  executive  and  its  officials. 

In  a  majority  of  countries  where  postal  systems  exist  there  is  no 
legislature  at  all ;  in  others  it  is  but  a  shadow ;  in  some,  merely  an 
office  wherein  to  register  the  decrees  of  royalty.  If  in  any  such  the 
right  to  transmit  through  the  King's  mails  any  matter  free  is  conceded 
to  the  semblance  the  legislature,  it  is  strictly  a  privilege,  or  possibly  a 
sort  of  badge  of  office  or  distinction.  It  is  a  matter  of  grace,  hke  the 
license  to  kill  deer  in  the  royal  forests — "  blowing  a  horn  if  the  forester 
be  absent,  so  that  the  Eang's  venison  may  not  seem  to  be  taken  by 
stealth."  In  all  such  states  there  is  little  need  for  sympathy  or  commu- 
nication between  the  representative  and  the  constituent,  since  elections  in 
some  are  but  mere  forms,  and  in  others  the  executive  is  the  real  and 
sometimes,  in  whole  or  in  part,  the  formal  constituent  of  the  legislature. 
In  but  one  country  besides  our  own  has  the  legislative  department  any 
real  and  sub^ntial  portion  of  the  power  of  the  government,  and  even 
there  the  post-office  system  grew  up  under  the  auspices  of  royalty,  and 
at  a  period  when  Parliaments  were  but  the  registers  of  the  King's  good 
will  and  pleasure.  Postal  couriers  were  employed  by  King  John  to 
convey  government  dispatches  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
between  that  period  and  the  reign  of  James  I.,  when  the  first  postmas- 
ter-general, having  charge  of  as  well  private  as  public  correspondence, 
was  appointed,  nothing  probably  but  official  letters  and  packets  was 
transmitted  by  the  King's  post.  From  the  beginning  down  to  the  time 
of  the  Long  Parliament  the  entire  system  was  under  the  control  of  the 
executive  as  a  part  of  the  royal  prerogative,  and  posts  were  established 
by  proclamation.  ^Vhen  in  the  ttme  of  Cromwell,  both  King  and 
Lords  were  abolished,  and  all  power  consolidated  at  first  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  post-office  passed  also  under  their  control,  and  they 
succeeded,  of  course,  to  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  executive,  and 


252  vallandigham's  speeches. 

used  the  mails  for  the  conveyance  of  their  own  dispatches  and  intelligence. 
Blackstonc  dates  the  tirst  legislative  establishment  and  regulation  of  the 
post-otHce  from  this   period.     At  the  restoration,  in  1600,  the  system, 
though  then  and  ever  afterwards  subject  to  control  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment instead  of  royal  proclamation,  passed  again  in  its  administration 
into  the  hands  of  the  King.     Pending  a  bill  in  the  same  year  for  the 
organization  of  the  post-office,  the  Commons,  ''  because  that  the  letters 
of  as  well   the  King's   council  of  state   as  his  own  and  other  executive 
officers  passed  free  through  the  mails,"  added  a  proviso  that  their  letters 
also  should  be  entitled  to  the  same  privilege.     The  Lords  threw  out  the 
proviso,  and  the  Commons  consented  to  drop  it  upon  a  private  assurance 
from  the  crown  that  the  exemption  should  be  allowed  to  the  members ; 
and  accordingly  a  warrant  was  ever  afterwards  regularly  issued  from  the 
King  to  the  postmaster-general,  directing  the  allowance  to  members  of 
Parliament  of  free  letters  to  the  extent  of  two  ounces.     This  was  the 
origin   of  the  "franking  privilege;''''  for  privilege  it  then  really   was, 
granted  of  royal  grace,  and  so  it  continued  for  a  century,  when,  in  1764, 
it  was  for  the  first  time  confirmed  and  recfulated  bv  act  of  Parliament. 
Why,  your  committee  ask,  shall  the  executive  dispatches  and  corre- 
spondence pass  free  through  the  mails  or  be  paid  for  twt  of  the  common 
treasury  ?     The  reason  is  twofold  :  First,  because  they  are  official  com- 
munications passing  between  superiors  and  subordinates,  between  prin- 
cipals and  agents  upon   public  business.     It  is  fit,  therefore,  that  the 
public  should  pay  the   expense.     Second,   the  people  have  a  right  to 
know  what  the  executive  department  is  doing,  and  wliether  their  public 
servants  are  fully  and  faithfully  discharging  their  public  duties,  to  the 
end  that  they  may  be  held  to  a  due  responsibility.     And  it  is  fit  again 
that  the  people  and  not  their  servants  should  pay  the  expense.     Do  n-ot 
both  these  considerations  apply  equally  to  congressional  or  legislative 
communications  ?     The   States   and  the  people   are  the  constituents ; 
members   of  Congress   are   their  representatives;    the   States  and   the 
people  are  principals ;  we  their  agents.     They  are  superiors,  we  subor- 
dinates.    IIow  shall  responsibility  be  enforced   without  knowledge  on 
the  part  of  the  States  and  of  the  people  of  what  their  agents  are  doing 
and  of  how  they  discharge  their  trusts  ?     Is  it  unimportant  to  the  public 
interests  or  not  necessary  for  the  maintenance,  pure  and  incorrupt,  of  our 
institutions  as  they  now  exist,  that  the  accountability  of  the  legislative 
department  to  the  States  and  the  people  should  be   preserved  ?     Is  it 
not  the  more  important  and  the  more  essential,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the 
business  and  duty  of  the  legislative  to  enforce  responsibility  upon  the 
executive,  and  thus  to  stan9  as  the  sentinel  or  custodian  of  State  and 
popular  rights?     But  quis  custodial  custodes  ipsos,  if  there  shall  be  no 
communication  between  Congress  and  the  people  and  States?     And  if 


rRA^XlJNG    PEIVILEGE.  253 

there  be  communication  througli  the  instrumentality  of  tlie  Post-Office 
Department — a  part  and  parcel  of  government  machinery — why  shall 
the  legislative  any  more  than  the  executive  public  servant  be  required  to 
pay  the  expense  out  of  his  own  private  fortune  'i  The  very  basis  of  our 
government  is  the  responsibility  of  representatives  to  their  constituents ; 
and  free  and  frequent  communication  between  the  two  is  essential  to  the 
enforcement  of  this  responsibility.  It  is  not  enough  that  they  may 
communicate  mutually  through  the  newspaper  press.  The  States  and 
the  people  have  a  right  to  send  and  receive  directly  to  and  from  their 
representatives,  and  to  learn  in  an  authentic  and  official  form  what  has 
been  said  and  done  by  these  public  servants.  Your  committee  will  not 
press  the  importance  of  this  consideration  further ;  it  is  too  obvious. 

If  it  be  urged  that  the  right  to  frank  extends  also  to  merely  private 
communications  between  individuals,  your  committee  answer  that  this 
is  at  most  an  abuse  and  a  small  one  which,  if  need  be,  it  is  easy  to  cut 
off.     But  according  to  the  individual  experience  and  observation  of  the 
members  of  your  committee,  the  number  of  strictly  private  business  oi 
social   letters  passing  free  through  the  mails  is  very  small.     Letters  oi 
communications  relating  in  any  way  to  political   affairs   between  repre 
sentative   and  constituent  your  committee  do  not  deem  mere  private 
letters.     In  their  judgment  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  communication 
should  relate  solely  to  business  formally  before  Congress  in  order  to 
entitle  it  to  the  designation  of,  a  public  or  official  letter.     If  a  represen- 
tative has  the  right  to  print  and   address  a  communication  directed  to 
the  whole  body  of  his. constituents  relating  to  general  politics  and  public 
affairs,  or  solely  to  the  local   politics  of  his  own  district,  why   may  he 
not  address  the  same  in  manuscript  to  any  one  of  his  constituents  ? 

But  if  franking  be  really  a  mere  privilege  and  not  a  right  of  the  people 
and  a  duty  of  the  representative,  then  your  committee  demand  to  know 
Avhy  it  shall  be  conceded  in  a  republican  government  to  the  executive 
department  alone  and  denied  to  the  legislature  ?  Is  there  any  thing  in 
the  nature  of  the  government,  of  the  offices,  or  of  the  communications 
that  special  privileges  should  be  conferred  upon  the  foi-raer  and  not  also, 
or  rather,  indeed,  upon  the  latter  ? 

Loud  complaint  is  made  that  the  treasury  is  impoverished  by  reason 
of  the  vast  numbers  of  very  costly  books  and  public  documents  which, 
it  is  alleged,  would  not  be  printed  but  for  the  "  franking  privilege." 
Your  committee  answer  that  no  book  or  document  is  printed  except  by 
general  or  special  order  of  Congress  or  of  the  Senate  or  House  ;  and 
that  it  is  only  necessary  to  refuse  to  .lirect  the  printing  of  documents 
and  none  will  be  transmitted  by  mail,  and  thus  the  expense  both  of  • 
printing  and  transportation  be  saved.  But  what  are  these  books  and 
documents  thus  summarily  condemned?     They  are  the  records  of  the 


254  vallandiguam's  speeches. 

governmont  in  its  various  departments ;  tlic  reports  of  its  general  or 
special  agents  appointed  by  law.  They  are  the  official  archives  of  State, 
the  originals  of  which  are  accessible  to  those  only,  few  in  number,  who 
may  chance  to  visit  the  Federal  capital,  and  which  ought  to  be  printed ; 
which  the  people  have  a  right  to  see,  and  to  have  distributed  at  public 
expense  either  through  the  mails  or  by  express.  Certainly  the  printing 
of  books,  not  coming  strictly  within  the  class  above  described,  has  been 
of  late  years  carried  to  an  excess  which  demands  rebuke  and  retrench- 
ment. But  let  Congress  apply  the  corrective  directly,  by  refusing  to 
print,  and  not  circuitously  by  abolishing  the  riglit  to  transmit  free 
through  the  mail. 

It  is  complained,  also,  as  if  it  were  a  monstrous  abuse,  that  immense 
quantities  of  speeches  and  pamphlets  are  franked  from  the  Capitol, 
especially  during  a  presidential  canvass;  and  tables  have  been  prepared 
to  show  that  they  number  millions.  Your  committee  would  have  mil- 
lions more,  in  the  same  manner,  sent  out.  Every  one  of  them  relates 
to  the  politics  of  the  country.  Every  one  of  them  finds  its  way  into  the 
hands  of  some  one  or  more  of  the  people — of  the  constituent  body  to 
whom  this  nousc  and  every  other  department  of  the  Government  is 
responsible.  They  afford  public  instruction  and  mould  public  senti- 
ment. They  are  printed  at  the  private  cost  of  the  members  of  the 
Senate  or  House — a  heavy  tax  and  a  heavy  burden  in  itself — and  it  is 
fit  that,  meant  for  the  people,  they  should  at  least  be  circulated  through 
the  people's  mails,  and  at  the  people's  expense.  There  is  no  "privi- 
lege" in  all  this  to  the  member ;  it  is  his  duty  and  burden,  and  the 
privilege  of  the  constituent. 

The  free  exchange  of  newspapers  is,  perhaps,  an  anomaly  in  the  post- 
ofiice  system,  and  includes,  no  doubt,  a  greater  amount  of  matter  than 
any  other  passing  free  through  the  mails.  Yet  your  committee  justify 
it  upon  the  ground  of  long  and  uniform  usage — more  than  a  hundred 
years  in  duration — and  for  strong  reasons  of  public  policy.  It  would 
be  not  difficult  to  demonstrate  that  to  cut  off  free  exchan'j;es  would  iro 
far  to  break  down  the  whole  newspaper  press  of  the  country,  except  a 
few  of  the  leading  journals  in  the  larger  cities,  and  thus  to  concentrate 
in  these  journals  all  that  tremendous  power  which  belongs  to  this 
"  fourth  estate"  of  Government.  Cities  would  become  still  more  the 
scats  of  political  power ;  thither  alone  would  ambitious  eyes  be  directed, 
and  public  servants  would  be  compelled  to  look  for  responsibility  no 
longer  to  their  own  immediate  constituents,  but  to  the  conductors  of  a 
powerful  metropolitan  press,  which  already  exerts  a  controlling,  though 
not  always  wholesome  influence  o\  er  public  sentiment  throughout  the 
Union.  It  is  the  great  problem  in  a  Republican  'frovernment  how  to 
decentralize  power,  whose  natural  tendency   is  to  gravitate  towards  a 


FKANKTN^G    PRIVILEGE.  255 

common  centre.  Wide  extent  of  country,  separate  State  Governments, 
conflicting  interests,  local  jealousy,  pride  and  ambition,  but,  above  all, 
the  electric  telegraph,  have  prevented  or  arrested  hitherto  in  the  United 
States  that  evil  wlaich,  for  the  most  part,  is  suppressed  in  Europe  by  a 
denial  ofliberty  to  the  press.  Still  the  great  journals  of  our  larger  cities 
need  no  aid  from  Government.  Rejoicing  in  abundant  capital,  full  of 
enterprise,  commanding  a  high  order  of  talent  of  every  sort,  laying  every 
art,  every  science,  and  the  whole  circle  of  literature  under  contribution, 
and  constituting  thus  a  controlling,  and  certainly  a  most  wonderful 
element  of  modern  civilization,  they  are  able  to  stand  alone,  and  Govern- 
ment, indeed,  itself  is  glad  sonietimes  to  look  to  them  for  support. 
Your  committee  would  withdraw  no  privilege,  therefore,  from  the  country 
press — an  institution  so  essential  to  that  equality  which  is  the  corner- 
stone of  every  truly  Democratic  State. 

For  the  same  reasons,  also,  your  committee  propose  to  continue  to  the 
publishers  of  weekly  newspapers  the  privilege  of  transmitting  to  sub- 
scribers one  copy  free  of  postage  within  the  county  of  publication. 

So  far  your  committee  have  discussed  this  question  upon  principle. 
We  propose,  now,  briefly  to  meet  and  reply  to  some  considerations 
urged  in  behalf  of  the  measure  on  the  score  of  policy. 

The  clamor  just  now  in  favor  of  this  alleged  reform,  so  far  as  it  is 
disinterested,  is  founded  mainly  upon  the  very  great  increase  of  late 
years  in  the  expenditures  of  the  Post-Oflice  Department.  To  this  your 
committee  answei',  that  a  large  part  of  this  increase  accrues  because  of 
the  extension  of  mail  facilities  by  overland  and  water  to  the  Pacific 
coast,  and  that  the  free  mail  matter  transported  over  these  routes  bears 
as  to  the  cost  but  an  insignificant  proportion  to  the  whole.  The  evil 
lies  not  there.  No  ;  the  last  aimual  report  of  the  Postmaster-General 
discloses  the  secret  of  this  inordinate  increase.  The  six  different  routes 
to  and  from  the  Pacific,  cost  the  Government  $2,693,394  13,  being  an 
expenditure  of  $4  14  to  <;ach  inhabitant  of  that  section  of  the  Union, 
600,000  in  number,  while  the 'cost  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  for 
thirty  millions  o/ .people,  is  less  than  forty-one  cents  to  each  person. 
The  annual  receipts  from  these  six  routes  are  $339,747  66,  showing  an 
excess  of  expenditures  of  $1,844,949  66  per  annum.  One  route  alone 
costs  $600,000,  and  yields  as  revenue  the  exact  sum  of  $27,229  94. 
Here,  then,  is  ample  rooin  for  reform.  Will  not  the  "  non-franking 
patriots"  of  the  Senate  and  Hoxtse  see  to  it  ? 

Your  committee  would  not,  indeed,  diminish  by  one  jot  the  necessary 
and  reasonable  mail  facilities  of  that  vast  and  opulent  portion  of  our 
confederacy,  which,  lying  at  so  great  a  distance  from  the  centre,  and 
separated  by  vast  deserts  and  high  mountains,  bears  yet  its  full  propor- 
tion of  the  burdens  of  Government  without  a  just  measure  of  its  bene- 


250  VALLANDIGIIAM's*  SPEECHES. 

fits.  But  iv  provident  and  economical  adjustment  and  equalization  of 
these  facilities  is  neither  denial  iiur  iiijus.tice  to  the  people  of  the  Pacific 
coast. 

Another  and  yet  more  important  cause  of  this  vast  increase  in  the 
expenditures  of  the  Post-Office  Departmetit  is  the  great  redaction,  of 
late  years,  in  the  rates  of  postage.  However  unwise  this  too  close  imita- 
tion of  the  British  postal  reform  may  at  first  have  been,  your  committee 
are  opposed  to  any  return  to  the  higher  rates,  at  least  till  the  experiment 
of  cheap  postage  shall  have  been  more  fijUy  and  fairly  tried,  the  Govern- 
ment itself  meantime  paying  its  just  proportion  out  of  the  common 
treasury  for  the  transportation  of  its  own  mail  matter  free. 

It  is  said  that  the  abolition  of  franks  will  cut  off  millions  by  retrench- 
ing the  amount  of  public  printing.  Your  committee  have  already  replied 
that  not  a  dollar  is  expended  for  printing  except  by  act  or  resolution 
of  one  or  both  houses  of  Congress.  Let  us  lay  the  axe,  then,  at  the  root 
of  the  evil.  But  are  these  books  and  public  documents  printed  in  excess 
solely  because  they  may  be  transmitted  free  ?  or,  rather,  is  it  not  that 
the  public  printer  may  be  enriched,  or  reimbursed,  at  least,  what  it  has 
cost  him  to  secure  his  election  ?  If  so,  the  abolition  of  franks  will  in 
nowise  tend  to  arrest  the  evil. 

But  it  is  urged  that  the  mails  are  loaded  down  by  the  weight — 
multorum  camelorum  onus — of  books  and  public  documents,  and  that 
thus  the  cost  of  mail  transportation  is  greatly  enhanced.  Now,  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  free  matter  is  carried  upon  railroads  or  in  steam- 
boats ;  and  what  contractor,  we  ask,  will  carry  for  one  dollar  a  mile 
less  because  of  the  abolition  ^5f  franks  I  The  department  furnishes,  and 
must  furnish,  the  route  agents ;  while  the  contractors  provide,  and  must 
provide,  the  mail  cars  or  apartments,  whether  there  be  free  mail  matter 
or  not ;  and  of  what  moment  is  it,  in  this  regard,  to  either  contractor  or 
department,  whether  there  be  one  bag  to  transport  or  twenty  ? 

Again,  it  is  said,  and  Postmasters-General  have  repeated  it  till  it  has 
become  a  sort  of  carmen  necessarium  to  officials,  that  this  great  reform 
is  to  ffain  millions  to  the  department.  "There  is  no  reason,"  so.it  is 
written  down  in  a  late  annual  report,  "  why  the  Post^ffice  Department, 
through  its  contractors,  should  perform  this  service  gratuitously  for  the 
Government  than  there>  is  that  the  steamboats  and  railroad  companies 
of  the  country  should  transport  its  troops,  munitions  of  war,  and  stores 
without  compensation."  When,  your  committee  beg  to  know,  did  the 
Post-Office  Department  become  a  separate  Government?  "When  did 
it  "  secede  ?"  Hitherto  it  has  been  a  popular  delusion  that  the  General 
Post-Office  was  but  a  branch  or  department  of  the  government — a  part 
of  the  machinery  by  which  its  constitutional  powers  and  functions  were 
to  be  executed.     It  has  been  supposed  the  creature  of  Congress  and 


FRAT^KING   PRIVILEGE.  257 

under  their  control  ;  and,  further,  that  if  Congress  should  command  it  to 
transport  certain  matter  free  of  postage,  it  was  its  duty,  as  a  branch  of  the 
executive,  to  "  faithfully  execute"  such  command,  even  "gratuitously  ;" 
leaving  it  to  Congress  to  supply  the  means,  in  such  manner  as  they 
might  see  fit.  Steamboat  and  railroad  companies  being  made  up  of 
private  individuals  may,  constitutionally,  refuse  to  do  that  sort  of  service 
for  the  Government  without  "just  compensation  ;"  but  your  committee 
cannot  concede  any  such  privilege  to  a  mere  creature  of  Congress — a 
subordinate  Department  of  Government. 

But  $1,800,000  is  to  be  saved  in  postages  to  the  Government.  IIow 
saved  ?  If  that  vast  amount  of  mail  matter,  now  free,  which  so  greatly 
enhances,  as  is  said,  the  cost  of  transportation,  is  to  be  cut  off  by  the 
abolition  of  franks,  whence  is  to  come  the  alleged  increase  of  postage 
by  reason  of  this  same  matter  no  longer  transported  ?  If  books  and 
public  documents  are  no  more  to  be  printed,  they  cannot  be  transmitted 
through  the  mails  ;  and  if  not  transmitted,  they  cannot  be  charged  with 
postage.  There  must  be  a  loss  somewheie.  But  assume  that  this  class 
of  mail  matter  is  still  to  be  transported,  or  that  upon  another  class,  now 
free,  11,800,000  is  to  I  e  gained  in  postages,  who  is  to  pay  this  increased, 
amount?  If  out  of  the  treasury,  Government  saves  nothing;  if  those 
only  who' receive,  the  people,  pay,  then  it  is  but  another  form  of  taxa- 
tion or  burden,  and  far  cheaper  and  better  every  way  would  it  be  that 
they  should  pay  to  private  express  companies  or  other  common  carriers. 
If  those  who  send,  the  public  servants,  are  to  pay  these  $1,800,000  into 
the  treasury,  no  office  in  the  gift  of  Government — none  requiring  cor- 
respondence— is  worth  a  single  year's  purchase.  If  the  abolition  be 
confined  to  congressional  franks  alone,  and  that  sum  is,  in  this  waj',  to 
be  paid  into  the  treasury,  the  average  amount  to  each  Senator,  Repre- 
sentative, and  delegate  will  equal  $5,844  15 — nearly  twice  the  compen- 
sation now  allowed  to  them  by  law.  Divide  the  burden  between  those 
who  send  and  those  who  receive,  and  there  still  remains  to  each  member 
of  Congress  nearly  $2,500  as  his  proportion  of  the  tax. 

Finally,  it  is  urged  that  the  system  of  franking  is  full  of  abuses. 
Your  committee  deny,  as  to  much  that  is  denounced  as  an  abuse,  that 
it  deserv'cs  the  condemnation.  As  to  the  residue,  it  springs  from  either  a 
defect  ill  the  law  or  a  wanton  violation  of  it.  If  a  member  of  Congress 
frank  a,letter  not  written  by  himself,  or  strictly  by  his  order;  above  all, 
if  he  frank  envelopes,  or  packages  of  envelopes,  in  blank,  to  be  used  by 
those  not  entitled  to  the  privilege,  he  breaks  the  law,  and  dishonors  his 
office.  If  he  undertake  to  frank  that  which  is  not  mailable  matter,  or 
evasively  to  exceed  the  limit  of  two  ounces,  or  mark  that  as  a  "public 
documei;t"  which  is  not,  he  is,  in  like  manner,  guilty  of  an  offence 
against  both  law  and  good  morals.  It  is  an  act  of  unveracity  which  no 
17 


258  vallandigham's  speeches. 

gentleman,  upon  reflection,  will  commit.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  there  are 
no  adequate  penalties  for  any  of  these  offences.  Here,  then,  let  the 
"  amending  hand"  be  applied. 

Franking  by  deputy,  though,  in  the  judgment  of  your  committee, 
clearly  legal,  is  a  prolific  source  of  abuse.  Several  times  the  Post-OfBce 
Department,  assuming  it  to  be  contrary  to  law,  has  attempted  to  arrest 
it;  yet  so  heavy  is  the  burden  of  personal  franking,  especially  of 
speeches  and  public  documents,  that  the  department  has  never  long 
persisted  in  its  efforts.  And  your  committee  are  satisfied  that  a  desire 
on  the  part  of  members  to  evade  this  burden,  or  otherwise  the  heavy 
tax  for  the  hire  of  clerks,  is  the  cause  of  some  part,  at  least,  of  the  oppo- 
sition to  the  franking  privilege. 

'  To  correct  abuses,  and  at  the  same  time  to  relieve  members  of  Con- 
gress in  this  regard,  your  committee  report  a  plan  which  tbey  believe  to 
be  efficient,  and  at  the  same  time  secured  from  abuse,  and  which  they 
trust  may  be  approved  by  the  House.  This  plan,  along  with  a  few 
other  slight  amendments  or  modifications  of  existing  laws,  not  enlarging 
but  rather  restricting  the  franking  privilege,  they  propose  as  a  substitute 
for  the  Senate  bill  referred  to  them,  and  accordingly  report  the  accom- 
panying bill  as  a  digest  or  code  of  regulations  for  the  transmission  of 
free  matter  through  the  mails  of  the  United  States. 


JUSTICE    TO   THE    NORTU-^U'EST. 

REMARKS    OX    THE    MOTIOX    TO     EXCUSE    MR.    HAWKINS,    OF    FLORIDA, 


!) 


Ill  the  House  of  R"presentatives,  December  10,  1860. 

Compelled,  by  the  rules  of  the  House,  to  vote  upon  the  question  of 
excusin<T  the  gentleman  from  Florida  from  serving  upon  this  committee, 
I  desir(!,  in  a  few  words,  to  submit  my  own  reasons  for  the  vote  which 
I  propose  to  give.  With  many  of  the  reasons  assigned  by  the  gentle- 
man from  Florida,  I,  as  a  Representative  from  one  of  the  free  States  of 
this  Union,  have  nothing  to  do ;  but  there  are  considerations  which 
impel  mo,. as  such  Representative,  to  vote  for  the  motion  to  excuse. 

It  is  idle,  sir,  to  attempt  to  "  coerce"  any  gentleman  to  serve  upon 
this  committee  who  assigns  such  reasons  as  the  gentleman  from  Florida 
has  o-iven ;  and  in  justice  to  him,  and  to  his  State,  but  above  all,  to  the 
very  purpose  of  the  committee  itself,  I  cannot  so  vote.  You  may  decline 
to  excuse  him ;  you  cannot  compel  him  to  discharge,  with  good  will  or 
alacrity,  the  duties  you  impose  upon  him ;  and  what  kind  of  concilia- 
tion and  compromise  is  that  which  begins  by  forcing  a  man  to  serve 


JUSTICE   TO    THE   NORTH-WEST.  259 

upon  a  committee  raised  for  the  very  purpose  of  peace  ?  What  pros- 
pect, in  God's  name — I  speak  it  reverently — is  there  of  adjustment, 
when  you  are  obliged  to  resort  to  compulsion  to  make  up  your  com- 
mittee on  compromise  and  adjustment  ? 

I  pass  by  without  comment  the  consideration  so  earnestly  pressed 
by  the  gentleman  from  Florida,  that  this  proposition  might,  with  far 
more  propriety  and  effect,  have  come  from  the  Republican  party  in  this 
House ;  that  party  which  has  just  triumphed  in  the  election  which  is  the 
culminating  point  of  all  our  controversies,  and  of  all  the  dangers  which 
surround  us ;  and  that,  with  great  honor  to  himself  and  great  and  sooth- 
ing good,  it  iBay  have  been,  to  the  whole  country,  full  of  excitement  and 
alarm,  the  gentleman  now  chairman  of  this  coinmittee  (Mr.  CaRWiN), 
distinguished  for  his  age,  his  experience,  his  eloquence,  and  his  modera- 
tion— not  to  speak  of  his  position  as  the  "  leader"  (so  he  asserts)  of  that 
party — might  have  assumed  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  the 
initiative  in  that  great  work  of  reconciliation  and  reconstruction  which 
alone  can  save  us  now,  instead  of  allowing  it  to  be  devolved  upon  the 
Representative  of  that  particular  spot  in  Virginia  selected  by  Abolition 
madness  and  wickedness  as  the  weakest  point  of  attack  along  the  entire 
slaveholding  borders  of  this  Confederacy. 

I  pass  by  also  the  cumbrous  construction  of  this  committee,  with  the 
single  remark  that  a  council  of  war  never  fights,  and  a  committee  of 
thirty-three  will  never  agree  upon  any  thing — upon  any  thing,  certainly, 
not  so  weak,  so  diffused,  so  diluted,  as  to  be  utterly  inadequate  to  the 
solution  of  the  greatest  and  gravest  and  most  difficult  question  ever 
presented  in  modern  historj'.  I  will  not  so  much  as  suggest,  sir,  the 
possibility  that  the  labors  of  this  committee  will  all  end  in  nothing,  and 
in  worse  than  nothing;  nor — approving  earnestly  of  the  motive  for 
raising  the  committee — will  I  remark  even,  as  the  gentleman  from 
Florida  has  done,  upon  the  peculiar  composition  6f  this  committee  in 
having  men  appointed  upon  it  who  represent  nobody — not  even  them- 
selves— or  who  are  peculiarly  odious  or  distasteful  to  the  sections  from 
which  they  come ;  and  fitted,  therefore,  far  more  to  embarrass  and 
defeat,  than  to  advance  the  avowed  purpose  for  which  the  committee 
was  ordered.  Of  course,  sir,  I  mean  no  disrespect  personally  to  the 
Speaker ;  but  in  assigning  my  reasons  for  refusing  to  coerce  a  gentle- 
man to  serve  upon  this  committee,!  have  the  right,  and  mean  to  exercise 
it,  of  just  criticism  upon  its  composition,  and  of  suggestion  as  to  the 
probable  result  of  its  labors. 

But  there  is  one  consideration  which  will  absolutely  preclude  me  from 
voting  to  compel  any  man  to  act  upon  your  committee.  The  gentle 
man  from  Florida  has  alluded  to  it ;  but  he  has  not  stated  it  quite  strong 
enougii.      There  is  not  one  single  Representative  of  the  Democratic  party 


260  vallandigham's  speeches. 

uiyon  this  committee — not  from  the  Northwest  alone — but  from  the  sixteen 
free  States  of  this  Union  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  The  Pacific  is, 
iudcod,  represented.  No  thanks,  sir ;  it  was  "  Ilobson's  choice."  There 
is  no  Kcpublican  member  from  Cahfornia  here ;  although  Mr.  Lincoln, 
through  the  infinite  subdivision  of , his  opponents,  h;is  been  enabled  to 
secure  the  electoral  vote  of  that  State.  The  excellent  and  intellificnt 
gentleman  from  Oregon  (Mr.  Stout)  is,  indeed,  upon  it,  because  he  is 
fortunate  in  having  no  colleague,  in  this  House;  though,  to  .speak  the 
truth,  remembering  the  representation  of  Oregon  in  certain  recent  politi- 
cal conventions,  I  should  not  have  been  surprised  liad  that  gentleman 
been  supplanted  by  Horace  Greeley;. or  possibly  by  the  member  from 
Massachusetts  (Mr.  Tuayer),  although  that  member  is,  I  suspect,  a  little 
too  strongly  tinctured,  perhaps,  with  the  doctrine  of  "  squatter  sover- 
eignty" to  suit  the  times.     (Laughter.) 

But,  I  repeat,  sir,  there  is  not  upon  your  committee  one  solitary 
Representative  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  of  that  mighty  host,  num- 
bering one  million  six  hundred  thousand  men,  which  for  so  many  years 
has  stood  as  a  vast  breakwater  against  the  winds  and  waves  of  section- 
alism ;  and  upon  whose  constituent  elements,  at  least,  this  countrv  must 
still  so  much  depend  in  the  great  events  which  are  thronging  thick  upon 
us,  for  all  hope  of  preservation  now  or  of  restoration  hereafter.  Sir,  is 
any  man  here  insane  enough  to  imagine  for  a  moment  that  this  great 
Northern  and  Western  Democracy,  constituting  an  essential  part,  and 
by  far  the  most  numerous  part,  of  that  great  Democratic  party  which 
for  half  a  century  moulded  the  policy  and  controlled  the  destinies 
of  this  Republic ;  that  party  which  gave  to  the  country  some  of 
her  brightest  jewels ;  that  party  which  placed  upon  your  statute-books 
every  important  measure  of  enduring  legislation  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Government  to  this  day — that  such  a  section  of  such  a 
party  is  to  be  thus  utterly  ignored,  insulted,  and  thrust  aside  as  of  no 
value  ?  I  tell  you,  you  mistake  the  character  of  the  men  you  have  to 
deal  with.  We  are  in  a  minority  indeed,  to-day,  at  the  ballot-box ;  and 
we  bow  quietly  now  to  the  popular  will  thus  expressed.  We  are 
defeated,  but  not  conquered ;  and  he  is  as  a  fool  in  the  wisdom  of  this 
world,  wlio  tliinks  that  in  the  midst  of  the  stirring  and  revolutionary 
times  which  are  upon  us,  these  sixteen  hundred  thousand  men,  born 
free  and  now  the  equals  of  their  brethren — men  whose  every  pulse 
throbs  with  the  spirit  of  liberty — will  tamely  submit  to  be  degraded  to 
inferiority  and  reduced  to  political  servitude.  Never,  never,  while  there 
is  but  one  man  left  to  strike  a  blow  at  the  oppressor. 

Sir,  we  love  this  Union ;  and  more  than  that,  we  obey  the  Constitu- 
tion. We  are  here  a  gallant  little  band  of  less  than  thirty  men,  but 
representing  more  than  a  million  and  a  half  of  freemen.     We  are  here 


JUSTICE   TO    THE   N0ETH-WE3T.  261 

to  maintain  the  Constitution,  which  makes  the  Union,  and  to  exact  and  to 
yield  that  equality  of  rights  which  makes  the  Constitution  worth  main- 
taining. We  are  ready  here  to  do  all  and  to  suffer  all  in  the  cause  of 
our — thank  God ! — yet  common  country ;  and  by  no  vote  or  speech 
or  act  of  ours,  here  or  elsewhere,  shall  any  thing  be  done  to  defile,  or 
impair,  or  to  overthrow  this  the  grandest  temple  of  human  liberty  ever 
erected  in  any  age.  But  we  demand  to  worship  at  the  very  foot  of  the 
altar  ;  and  not,  as  servants  or  inferiors,  in  the  outer  courts  of  the  edifice. 
And,  sir,  if  the  great  work  of  the  preservation  or  of  the  restoration  of 
this  Government  is  to  go  on  successfully,  let  me  warn  gentlemen  that  it 
is  to  this  very  army  of  conservative  men  that  you  are  to  look  at  last  for 
its  consummation.  If  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  (Mr.  Corwin),  the. chair- 
man of  this  committee,  would  do  any  thing  effectively  to  correct  public 
sentiment  in  our  common  State,  it  is  to  the  two  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  men,  not  of  his  own  party,  together  with  such  others  of  that 
party  as  he  may  be  able  to  carry  over  with  him,  that  he  is  to  trust  for 
the  vindication  of  such  measures,  if  any,  of  conciliation  and  adjustment 
which  his  committee  may  propose,  and  this  House  and  the  Senate  may 
adopt.  So,  too,  it  will  be  in  every  free  State  of  this  Union.  And  yet 
that  powerful  minority,  reckoned  by  millions,  and  including  a  country 
extending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  made  up  of  men 
by  whose  right  hands  this  Government  is  to  be  defended  and  main- 
tained, or  restored,  are  as  voiceless  upon  this  committee  as  the  sands 
upon  the  sea-shore.  Can  any  good  result  from  a  committee  so  con- 
stituted ?  Ought  any  man  to  be  compelled  to  serve  upon  such  a  com- 
mittee ? 

I  speak  now  as  a  western  man ;  and  I  thank  the  gentleman  from 
Florida  heartily  for  the  kindly  sentiments  towards  that  great  West,  to 
which  he  has  given  utterance.  Most  cordially  I  reciprocate  them,  one 
and  all.  Sir,  we  of  the  Northwest  have  a  deeper  interest  in  the  preser- 
vation of  this  Government  in  its  present  form,  than  any  other  section  of 
the  Union.  Hemmed  in,  isolated,  cut  off  from  the  seaboard  upon  every 
side ;  a  thousand  miles  and  more  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
the  free  navigation  of  which,  under  the  law  of  nations,  we  demand,  and 
will  have  at  every  cost ;  with  nothing  else  but  our  other  great  inland 
seas,  the  lakes — and  their  outlet,  too,  through  a  foreign  country — what 
is  to  be  our  destiny  ?  Sir,  we  have  fifteen  hundred  ijiiles  of  southern 
frontier,  and  but  a  little  narrow  strip  of  eighty  miles  or  less,  from  Vir- 
ginia to  Lake  Erie,  bounding  us  upon  the  east.  Ohio  is  the  isthmus 
that  connects  the  South  with  the  British  Possessions,  and  the  East  with 
the  W^est.  The  Rocky  Mountains  separate  us  from  the  Pacific.  Where 
is  to  be  our  outlet?  What  are  we  to  do  when  you  shall  have  broken 
up  and  destroyed  this  Government?     We  are   seven  States  now,  with 


262  vallandigham's  speeches. 

fourteen  Senators  and  fifty-one  Representatives,  and  a  population  of  nine 
millions.  We  have  an  empire  ecjual  in  area  to  the  third  of  all  Europe, 
and  we  do  not  mean  to  be  a  dependency  or  province  either  of  the  East 
or  of  the  South  ;  nor  yet  an  inferior  or  second  rate  power  upon  this 
continent ;  and  if  we  cannot  secure  a  maritime  boundary  upon  other 
terms,  we  will  cleave  our  way  to  the  sea-coast  with  the  sword.  A  nation 
of  warriors  we  may  be  ;  a  tribe  of  shepherds  never.  I  speak  it  out,  sir, 
now  and  here  ;  yet  without  apprehension  of  any  just  cause  of  complaint 
or  quarrel  at  any  time  with  either  section  upon  this  question. 

And  yet  nearly  one-half  of  the  people  of  that  vast  empire,  which  very 
soon  is  to  perform  so  important  a  part  in  the  affairs  of  this  continent, 
are  utterly  ignored  and  excluded  from  this  committee.  More  than  six 
hundred  thousand  voters,  represented  here  by  sixteen  members  upon 
this  floor,  are  silenced  and  disfranchised  in  its  arrangement.  What  do 
you  propose  to  do  without  their  votes  at  home  and  our  votes  here  ?  Or 
are  we  both  to  accept  blindly  whatsoever  your  committee  may  choose 
graciously  to  report,  and  be  thankful  for  it  ?  Sir,  we  have  one  State 
with  a  Democratic  majority  upon  this  floor,  and  she,  at  least,  had  a 
right  to  be  represented  upon  your  committee.  I  find  no  fault,  person- 
ally, with  the  gentleman  from  that  State  now  on  the  Committee  (Mr. 
Kellogg),  but  the  Democracy  of  the  Northwest  had  a  right  to  be  heard 
through  the  State  of  Illinois. 

Such  is  your  committee ;  and  I  cannot  and  I  will  not  vote  to  compel 
any  man  to  serve  upon  it.  The  time  is  short ;  the  danger  imminent ; 
the  malady  deep-seated  and  of  long  standing.  Whatever  is  to  be  done 
must  be  done  at  once,  and  it  must  be  done  thoroughly.  Every  remedy 
must  go  right  straight  home  to  the  seat  of  the  disease.  Let  there  be 
no  delays,  no  weak  inventions,  no  temporizing  expedients.  Otherwise, 
not  secession  of  a  few  States  only,  but  total  and  absolute  disruption  of 
tliis  whole  Government  is  inevitable. 

Sir,  we  stand  this  day  in  the  forum  of  history.  We  are  acting  in  the 
eye  of  posterity.  We  have  solemn  duties  to  the  whole  country  to 
perform  ;   and  if  we  do  not  discharge  them  instantly  and  aright — 

"  Not  poppy,  nor  mandragora, 
Nor  all  the  drowsy  sirups  of  the  world, 
Shall  ever  medicine  us  to  that  sweet  sleepy 
Which  yesterday  we  ow'd." 

In  the  name,  then,  of  the  Democracy  of  sixteen  of  the  free  States  of 
this  Union,  I  protest  against  the  arrangement  of  this  committee.  My 
motives  may  be  misinterpreted  now.  Be  it  so.  Time  in  a  little  while 
will  vindicate  them. 


NO    COEKCION COMPEOMISE.  263 

RESPONSE, 

Upon    being   called    out   at    a   Serenade   to   the   Hon.   George 
E.  PuGH,  Washington,  December  22,  I860.* 

Fellow-Citizens  :  As  a  Western  man,  as  a  citizen  of  Ohio,  as  a  long- 
time friend,  and  now  the  colleague  and  house-mate  of  the  Senator  from 
my  State,  in  whose  honor  you  have  assembled,  I  thank  you  cordially  for 
this  demonstration — a  personal  compliment  to  him  for  the  ability  and 
courage  which  the  other  day  he  displayed  in  the  Senate  Chamber.  No 
man  has  deserved  it  better,  and  he  too,  I  am  sure,  thanks  you  heartily 
for  it.  But  it  is  as  a  testimonial  in  behalf  of  the  doctrine  enforced  and 
the  policy  pronounced  by  him  on  that  occasion,  that  this  demonstration 
has  peculiar  significance.  To-night  you  are  here  to  indorse  the  great 
policy  of  conciliation,  not  force ;  peace,  not  civil  war.  The  desire 
nearest  the  heart  of  every  patriot  in  this  crisis,  is  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  of  these  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it.  [Applause.]  But  the 
Union  can  be  preserved  only  by  maintaining  the  Constitution,  and  the 
constitutional  rights,  and  above  all,  the  perfect  equality  of  every  State 
and  every  section  of  this  Confederacy.  [Cheers.]  That  Constitution 
was  made  in  peace ;  it  has,  for  now  more  than  seventy  years,  been 
preserved  by  the  policy  of  peace  at  home,  and  it  can  alone  be  maintained 
for  our  children,  and  their  children  after  them,  by  that  same  peace 
policy. 

This  Union  is  not  to  be  held  together,  this  Constitution  is  not  to  be 
cemented  by  the  blood  of  our  citizens  poured  out  in  civil  war;  and 
coercion  is  civil  war,  and  it  is  folly  to  attempt  to  disguise  its  true  charac- 
ter under  the  name  and  pretence  of  "  enforcing  the  laWs."  The  people 
will  in  the  end  demand  a  bloody  reckoning  upon  the  heads  of  those 
who  may  thus  deceive  them.  [Loud  cheers.]  No ;  let  us  negotiate, 
compromise,  .concede  ;  let  us,  if  need  be,  give  and  receive  new  guaran- 
tees for  our  respective  rights ;  for  this  is  wisdom  and  true  statesman- 
ship ;  and  in  this  way  only  can  the  Government  be  preserved  or  restored. 
At  all  events  let  us  have  no  civil  war.  [Applause.]  And,  as  one  living 
near  the  borders  of  what  may  be,  unhappily,  and  in  an  evil  hour,  a 
divided  Confederacy,  I  am  resolved  that  by  no  vote,  by  no  speech,  by 
no  act  of  mine  shall  any  thing  be  done  to  plunge  this  my  country,  into 
the  horrors  of  a  war  among  brethren. 

I  lament  profoundly  indeed  the  causes  which  have  led  to  this  most 
alarming  crisis  in  the  midst  of  which  we  now  are.    I  have  labored  faith- 

*  Speeches  were  also  made  on  this  occasion,  by  Hons.  George  E.  Pugh,   John  J. 
Crittenden,  George  A.  Pendleton,  Robert  Mallory,  and  others. 


2C-4  vallaijdigham's  speeches. 

fully  and  right  manfully  for  years  to  correct  and  to  remove  them.  I 
regret  also  the  results  which  naturally  and  inevitably  have  followed  them. 
But  if  we  must  separate,  let  it,  iu  God's  name,  be  in  peace,  Then  we 
shall  be  able  to  reconstruct  this  Government.  If  we  cannot  preserve, 
we  can,  and  wc  will,  restore  it,  aud  become  thus  the  second  founders  of 
the  Republic.  That  is  our  mission,  inferior  only  in  glory  and  honor, 
and  in  good,  to  the  mission  of  those  who  laid  its  foundation  at  lirst. 
[Applause]. 

Preserve  peace  and  jve  shall  yet  save  this  Government ;  we  shall  have 
time  to  correct  public  sentiment  everywhere,  and  to  agree  upon  such 
tenns  of  adjustment  as  will  consolidate  the  union  of  these  States  and 
make  it  firmer  and  stronger  than  before.  But  the  first  drop  of  blood 
shed  among  us  in  the  wicked  and  murderous  insanity  of  coercion  will 
be  the  beginning  of  a  civil  war,  and  of  massacres  and  atrocities,  the  end 
of  which  neither  you  nor  your  children's  children  will  see,  till  wearied, 
impoverished,  exhausted,  the  people  of  a  generation  or  two  hence  shall 
seek  for  peace  and  security  under  the  despotism  of  the  two,  throe,  or 
more  military  leaders  who  shall  partition  this  magnificent  country  of 
ours  between  them,  by  the  sword.  Hence,  citizens  of  Washington,  you 
are  right  to  be  here  to-night  to  testify  your  approval  of  that  great  policy 
of  peace  and  conciliation  which  alone  can  avert  these  horrors.  [Great 
cheering.] 

The  Republican  party  has  come  into  power  with  the  threat  of  hostility 
to  the  rights  and  institutions  of  nearly  one-half  of  this  Confederacy ;  and 
it  is  just  and  fit,  according  to  the  course  of  the  common  law,  but,  above 
all,  of  the  great  law  of  self-preservation,  that  they  should  be  put  under 
bonds  not  to  carry  that  threat  into  execution.  [Applause.]  This  is  the 
philosophy  of  new  guarantees  for  old  rights.  It  is  the  philosophy  of 
that  policy  to  which  the  gentleman  in  whose  honor  you  have  assembled, 
together  with  myself  and  others  from  the  North  and  Northwest,  are 
wholly  and  resolutely  committed.  AVe  mean  to  stand  by  it.  Public 
sentiment  may,  indeed,  at  first  be  against  us ;  the  tide  may  run  heavily 
the  other  way  for  a  little  while ;  but  thank  God  we  all  have  nerve 
enough,  and  Avill  enough,  and  faith  enough  in  the  people,  to  know  that 
at  last  it  will  turn  for  peace  ;  and  though  we  may  be  prostrated  for  a 
time  by  the  storm,  yet  upon  the  gravestone  of  every  patriot  who  shall 
die  now  in  the  cause  of  peace  and  humanity  and  the  country,  shall  be 
written,  "  Hesurffam^' — I  shall  rise  again.  Audit  will  be  a  glorious 
resurrection.  [Loud  and  continued  applause.]  From  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber, then,  from  the  Hall  of  Representatives,  and  from  this  assemblage 
to-night,  let  the  word  go  forth  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  that  come  what  may  of  secession, 
disruption,  and  political  discord  and  strife,  the  sword  at  least  shall  not 


THE    GREAT   AMERTCajN"   EEVOLUTION    OF    1861.       265 

be  drawn  by  tbe  rival  sections,  nor  our  quarrels  ever  be  submitted  to  its 
stern  arbitrament.     [Applause]. 

A  voice — Let  South  Carolina  go  to 

South  Carolina  is  bound,  I  trust,  upon  no  such  mission  [loud  and 
deafening  applause],  travelling  in  no  such  direction.  [Cheers.]  But  I 
hope  and  believe  that  if  security  but  be  given  to  her  for  the  full  and 
undisturbed  enjoyment  of  the  same  rights  and  no  more,  she  must  ask 
no  more — [A  Voice. — She  don't  ask  more] — which  she  is  entitled  to 
now  in  the  Union  and  under  the  Constitution ;  if  the  ne\Y  guarantees 
for  old  rights,  proposed  by  Mr.  Crittenden,  or  similar  guarantees,  ample 
enough  to  settle  finally  and  forever  this  pestilent  anti-slavery  agitation, 
which,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  having  shaken  the  temple  of  this 
Union,  is  now  about  to  topple  it  down  in  ruin  upon  our  heads — if  these 
shall  be  given  in  the  same  spirit  with  which  the  Constitution  itself  was 
made  and  agreed  to.  South  Carolina  will  gladly  return  to  that  Con- 
federacy, in  the  founding  of  which,  as  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution 
which  preceded  it,  her  heroes  and  patriots  and  statesmen  bore  so  gallant 
and  honorable  and  distinguished  a  part.     [Cheers.] 

Fellow-citizensj  I  am  all  over,  and  altogether,  a  Union  man.  I  would 
preserve  it  in  all  its  integrity  and  worth.  But,  I  repeat,  that  this  cannot 
be  done  by  coercion — by  the  sword.  He  who  would  resort  to  force — 
military  force,  is  a  disunionist,  call  himself  what  he  may,  and  disguise  it 
though  he  may  under  the  pretext  of  executing  the  laws  and  preserving 
the  Union.  He  is  a  "  disunionist,"  whether  he  knows  it  and  means  it 
or  not.  Hence  I  am  for  peace  and  for  compromise,  fixed,  irrepealable 
compromise,  so  that  we  may  secure  peace ;  but  I  am  for  peace  in  any 
event — peace  upon  both  sides  and  upon  all  sides,  now  and  forever. 


THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION  OF  1861. 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives^  Feb.  20,  1861.* 

The  special  order — namely,  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Thirty- 
Three — being  under  consideration — Mr.  Vallandigham  addressed  the 
House  as  follows : 

Mr.  Speaker  :    It  was  my  purpose,  some  three  months  ago,  to  speak 

*  Thi6  is  that  famous  speech  in  which  Mr.  Vallandigham  is  said  to  have  pro- 
posed to  divide  the  Union  into  '  'four  distinct  naikmalities. ' '    The  whole  speech  is  here 


266  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

solely  upon  tlic  question  of  peace  and  w.-u'  between  the  two  great  sections 
of  the  Union,  and  to  defend,  at  length,  the  position  which,  in  the  very 
beginning  of  this  crisis,  and  almost  alone,  I  assumed  against  the  employ- 
ment of  military  force  by  the  Federal  Government  to  execute  its  laws 
and  restore  its  authority  within  the  States  which  might  secede.  Subse- 
quent events  have  rendered  this  unnecessary.  Within  the  three  months, 
or  more,  since  the  I'residential  election,  so  rapid  has  been  the  progress 
of  events,  and  such  the  magnitude  which  the  movement  in  the  South 
has  attained,  that  the  country  has  been  forced — as  this  House  and  the 
incoming  Administration  will  at  last  be  forced,  in  spite  of  their  warlike 
purposes  now — to  regard  it  as  no  longer  a  mere  casual  and  temporary 
rebellion  of  discontented  individuals,  but  a  great  and  terrible  revolu- 
tion, which  threatens  now  to  result  in  permanent  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  and  division  into  two  or  more  rival,  if  not  hostile,  confederacies. 
Before  this  dread  reality,  the  atrocious  and  fruitless  policy  of  a  war  of 
coercion  to  preserve  or  to  restore  the  Union  has,  outside,  at  least,  of 
these  walls  and  of  this  capital,  rapidly  dissolved.  The  people  have 
taken  the  subject  up,  and  have  reflected  upon  it,  till,  to-day  in  the 
South,  almost  as  one  man,  and  by  a  very  large  majority,  as  I  believe,  in 
the  North,  and  especially  in  the  West,  they  are  resolved,  that,  whatever 
else  of  calamity  may  befall  us,  that  horrible  scourge  of  civil  war  shall 
be  averted.  Sir,  I  rejoice  that  the  hard  Anglo-Saxon  sense  and  pious 
and  humane  impulses  of  the  American  people  have  rejected  the  specious 
disguise  of  words  without  wisdom,  which  appealed  to  them  to  enforce 
the  laws,  collect  the  reveime,  maintain  the  Union,  and  restore  the 
Federal  authority  by  the  perilbus  edge  of  battle,  and  that  thus  early  in 
the  revolution  they  are  resolved  to  compel  us,  their  Representatives, 
belligerent  as  you  of  the  llepublican  party  here  may  now  be,  to  the 
choice  of  peaceable  disunion  upon  the  one  hand,  or  Union  through 
adjustment  and  conciliation  upon  the  other.  Born,  sir,  upon  the  soil  of 
the  United  States — attached  to  my  country  from  earliest  boyhood, 
loving  and  revering  her  with  some  part,  at  least,  of  the  spirit  of  Greek 
and  Roman  patriotism — between  these  two  alternatives,  with  all  my 
mind,  with  all  my  heart,  with  all  my  strength  of  body  and  of  soul,  living 

given :  also,  the  proposed  amendments  to  the  Constitution.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine 
a  greater  perversion  of  the  plain  and  obvious  meaning  of  language  than  has  been 
exhibited  in  this  case.  The  reader  will  not  be  surprised  to  lind  that  this  speeeh, 
made  in  the  hour  of  most  imminent  peril,  when  the  greatest  calamity  any  nation 
has  ever  endured  was  impending,  so  far  from  being,  as  has  been  so  often  and  so 
falsely  asserted,  a  proposition  to  divide  the  Union  into  "  four  distinct  nationalities," 
was,  in  fact,  a  most  wise  and  prudent  suggestion,  evincing  the  deepest  political 
sagacity  and  foresight.  If  adopted,  the  country  would  have  been  saved  that  great 
waste  and  slaughter  which  have  already  wearied  and  sickened  the  heart  of  humanity, 
and  of  which  the  end  is  not  yet.  Even  now,  it  may  not  be  too  late  to  make  good 
use  of  some  features  of  the  plan  here  proposed. 


THE   GEE  AT   AMERICAN   REVOLUTION    OF    1861.      267 

or  dying,  at  home  or  in  exile,  I  am  for  the  Union  whicli  made  it  what 
it  is ;  and  therefore,  I  am  also  for  such  terms  of  peace  and  adjustment 
as  will  maintain  that  Union  now  and  forever.  This,  then,  is  the  question 
which  to-day  I  propose  to  discuss : 

How  SHALL  THE  UnION  OF  THESE  StATES  BE  RESTORED  AND  PRE- 
SERVED ? 

Sir,  it  is  with  becoming  modesty,  and  with  something  of  awe,  that  I 
approach  the  discussion  of  a  question  which  the  ablest  statesmen  of  the 
country  have  failed  to  solve.  But  the  country  expects  even  the  humblest 
of  her  children  to  serve  her  in  this,  the  hour  of  her  sore  trial.  This  is 
my  apology. 

Devoted  as  I  am  to  the  Union,  I  have  yet  no  eulogies  to  pronounce 
upon  it  to-day.  It  needs  none.  Its  highest  eulogy  is  the  liistory  of 
this'  country  for  the  last  seventy  years.  The  triumphs  of  war,  and  the 
arts  of  peace — science,  civilization,  wealth,  population,  commerce,  trade, 
manufactures,  literature,  education,  justice,  tranquillity,  security  to  life, 
to  person,  to  property — material  happiness,  common  defence,  national 
renown,  all  that  is  implied  in  the  "  blessings  of  liberty" — these,  and 
more,  have  been  its  fruits  from  the  beginning  to  this  hour.  These  have 
enshrined  it  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  ;  and,  before  God,  I  believe  they 
will  restore  and  preserve  'it.  And,  to-day,  they  demand  of  us,  their 
ambassadors  and  Representatives,  to  tell  them  how  this  great  work  is  to 
be  accomplished. 

Sir,  it  has  well  been  said  that  it  is  not  to  be  done  by  eulogies. 
Eulogy  is  for  times  of  peace.  Neither  is  it  to  be  done  by  lamentations 
over  its  decline  and  fall.  These  are  for  the  poet  and  the  historian,  or 
for  the  exiled  statesman  who  may  chance  to  sit  amid  the  ruins  of  deso- 
lated cities.  Ours  is  a  practical  work,  and  it  is  the  business  of  the  wise 
and  practical  statesman  to  inquire  first  what  the  causes  are  of  the  evils 
for  which  he  is  required  to  devise  a  remedy. 

Sir,  the  subjects  of  mere  partisan  controversy  which  have  been  chiefly 
discussed  here  and  in  the  country,  so  far,  are  not  the  causes,  but  only 
the  symptoms  or  developments  of  the  ma^dy  which  is  to  be  healed. 
These  causes  are  to  be  found  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  in  the  peculiar 
nature  of  our  system  of  governments.  Thirst  for  power  and  place,  or 
pre-eminence — in  a  word,  ambition — is  one  of  the  strongest  and  earliest 
developed  passions  of  man.  It  is  as  discernible  in  the  school-boy  as  in  the 
statesman.  It  belonors  alike  to  the  individual  and  to  the  masses  of  men. 
and  is  exhibited  in  every  gradation  of  society,  from  the  femily  up  to  the 
highest  development  of  the  State.  In  all  voluntary  associations  of  any 
kind,  and  in  every  ecclesiastical  organization,  also,  it  is  equally  mani- 
fested. It  is  the  sin  by  which  the  angels  fell.  No  form  of  government 
is  exempt  from  it ;  for  even  the  absolute  monarch  is  obliged  to  execute 


268  YALLAXDIG ham's    SPEECHES. 

his  power  through  the  instrumentahty  of  agents^  and  ambition  here 
courts  one  master  instead  of  many  masters.  As  between  foreign  States, 
it  manifests  itself  in  schemes  of  conquest  and  territorial  aggrandize- 
ment. In  despotisms  it  is  shown  in  intrigues,  assassinations,  and  revolts. 
In  constitutional  monarchies,  and  in  aristocracies,  it  exhibits  itself  in 
contests  among  the  different  orders  of  society,  and  the  several  interests 
of  agriculture,  trade,  commerce,  and  the  professions.  In  democracies 
it  is  seen  everywhere,  and  in  its  highest  development ;  for  here  all  the 
avenues  to  political  place  and  preferment,  and  emolument,  too,  are  open 
to  every  citizen ;  and  all  movements,  and  all  interests  of  society,  and 
every  great  question — moral,  social,  religious,  scientific,  no  matter  what 
— assumes,  at  some  time  or  other,  a  political  complexion,  and  forms  a 
part  of  the  election  issues  and  legislation  of  the  day.  Here,  when  com- 
bined with  interest,  and  where  the  action  of  the  Government  may  be 
made  a  source  of  wealth,  then  honor,  virtue,  patriotism,  religion,  all 
perish  before  it.     No  restraints  and  no  compacts  can  bind  it. 

In  a  federal  republic  all  these  evils  are  found  in  their  amplest  propor- 
tions, and  take  the  form  also  of  rivalries  between  the  States ;  or  more 
commonly,  or  finally,  at  least,  especially  where  geographical  and  climatic 
divisions  exist,  or  where  several  contiguous  States  are  in  the  same 
interest,  and  sometimes  where  they  are  similar  in  institutions  or  modes 
of  thought,  or  in  habits  and  customs,  of  sectional  jealousies  and  contro- 
versies, which  end  always,  sooner  or  later,  in  either  a  dissolution  of  the 
union  between  them,  or  the  destruction  of  the  Federal  character  of  the 
Gcrvernment.  But,  however  exhibited — whether  in  federative  or  in 
consolidated  governments,  or  whatever  the  development  may  be — the 
great  primary  cause  is  always  the  same :  the  feeling  that  might  makes 
right ;  that  the  strong  ought  to  govern  the  weak ;  that  the  will  of  the 
mere  and  absolute  majority  of  numbers  ought  always  to  control ;  that 
fifty  men  may  do  what  they  please  with  forty-nine ;  and  that  minorities 
have  no  rights,  or  at  least  that  they  shall  have  no  means  of  enforcing 
their'  rights,  and  no  remedy  for  the  violation  of  them.  And  thus  it  is 
that  the  strong  man  oppres^s  the  weak,  and  strong  communities.  States, 
and  sections  aggress  upon  the  rights  of  weaker  States,  communities,  and 
sections.  This  is  tl^e  principle;  but  I 'propose  to  speak  of  it,  to-day, 
only  in  its  development  in  the  political,  and  not  in  the  personal  or 
domestic  relations. 

Sir,  it  is  to  repress  this  principle  that  governments,  with  their  com- 
plex machinery,  are  instituted  among  men ;  though  in  their  abuse, 
indeed,  governments  may  themselves  become  the  worst  engines  of  op- 
pression. For  this  purpose  treaties  are  entered  into,  and  the  law  of 
nations  acknowledged  between  foreign  States.  Constitutions  and 
municipal  laws  and  compacts  are  ordained,  or  enacted,  or  concluded,  to 


THE   GEEAT   AMERICAN    EEVOLTTTION    OF    1861.     269 

secure  the  same  great  end.  No  men  understood  tliis,  the  philosophy 
and  aim  of  all  just  government,  better  than  the  fraraers  of  our  Federal 
Constitution.  No  men  tried  more  faithfully  to  secure  the  Government 
which  they  were  instituting  fi'om  this  mischief;  and,  had  the  country 
over  which  it  was  established  beisn  circumscribed  by  nature  to  the 
hmits  which  it  then  had,  their,  work  would  have,  perhaps,  been  perfect, 
endurino-  for  ao-es.  But  the  wisest  amono;  them  did  not  foresee — who, 
indeed,  that  was  less  than  omniscient,  could  hav,e  foreseen  ? — the  amazing 
rapidity  with  which  new  settlements  and  new  States  have  sprung  up, 
as  if  by  enchantment,  in  the  wilderness ;  or  that  political  necessity,  or 
lust  for  territorial  aggrandizement,  would,  in  sixty  years,  have  given  us 
new  Territories  and  States  equal  in  extent  to  the  entire  area  of  the 
country  for  which  they  were  tlien  framing  a  Government  ?  They  were 
not  priests  or  prophets  to  that  God  of  manifest  destiny  whom  we  now 
worship,  and  will  continue  to  worship,  whether  united  into  one  Con- 
federacy still,  or  divided  into  many.  And  yet  it  is  this  very  acquisition 
of  territory  which  has  given  strength,  though  not  birth,  to  that  section- 
alism which  already  has  broken  in  pieces  this,  the  noblest  Government 
ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  man.  Not  foreseeing  the  evil,  or  the  neces- 
sity, they  did  not  guard  against  its  results.  Believing  that  the  great 
danger  to  the  system  which  they  were  about  to  inaugurate  lay  rather 
in  the  jealousy  of  the  State  Governments  toward  the  power  and  authority 
delegated  to  the  Federal  Government,  they  defended  it  diligently  against 
that  danger.  Apprehending  that  the  larger  States  might  aggress  upon 
the  rights  of  the  smaller  •  States,  they  provided  that  no  StatQ  should, 
without  its  consent,  be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate. 
Lest  the  legislative  department  might  encroach  upon  the  executive, 
they  gave  to  the  President  the  self-protecting  power  of  a  qualified  veto ; 
and,  in  turn,  made  the  President  impeachable  by  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress.  Satisfied  that  the  several  State  Governments  were  strong 
enough  to  protect  themselves  from  Federal  aggressions,  if,  indeed,  not 
too  strong  for  the  efficiency  of  the  General  Government,  they  thus 
devised  a  system  of  internal  checks  and  balances  looking  chiefly  to  the 
security  of  the  several  departments  from  aggression  upon  each  other, 
and  to  prevent  the  system  from  being  used  to  the  oppression  of  indi- 
viduals. I  think,  sir,  that  the  debates  in  the  Federal  Convention,  and 
in  the  conventions  of  the  several  States  called  to  ratify  the  Constitution, 
as  well  as  the  contemporaneous  letters  and  publications  of  the  time,  will 
support  me  in  the  statement,  that  the  friends  of  the  Constitution  wholly 
under-estimated  the  power  and  influence  of  the  Government  which  they 
were  establishing.  Certainly,  sir,  many  of  the  ablest  statesmen  of  that 
day  earnestly  desired  a  stronger  Government ;  and  it  was  the  policy  of 
Mr.  Hamilton,  and  of  the  Federal  party,  which  he  created,  to  strengthen 


270  VALLANDIGIIAil's   SPEECHES. 

the  General  Government ;  and  hence  the  funding  and  protective  systems, 
the  national  bank,  ai)d  other  similar  schemes  of  finance,  along  with 
the  ''  general-welfare  doctrine,"  and  a  Ubcral  construction  of  the  Con- 
stitution. 

Sir,  the  framers  of  the  Constitution — and  I  speak  it  reverently,  but 
with  the  freedom  of  history — failed  to  foresee  the  strength  and  central-. 
izing  tendencies  of  the  Federal  Government.  They  mistook  wholly  the 
reiil  danger  to  the  system.  They  looked  for  it  in  the  aggressions  of  the 
large  States  upon  the  small  States,  without  regard  to  geographical  posi- 
tion, and  accordingly  guarded  jealously  in  that  direction,  giving,  for  this 
purpose,  as  I  have  said,  the  power  of  a  self-protecting  veto  in  the 
Senate  to  the  small  States,  by  means  of  their  equal  suffrage  in  that 
Chamber,  and  forbidding  even  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  in  this 
particular,  without  the  consent  of  every  State.  But,  they  seem  wholly 
to  have  overlooked  the  danger  of  sectional  combinations  as  against 
other  sections,  and  to  the  injury  and  oppression  of  other  sections,  to 
secure  possession  of  the  several  departments  of  the  Federal  Government, 
and  of  the  vast  powers  and  influence  which  belong  to  them.  In  like 
manner,  too,  they  seem  to  have  utterly  under-estimated  slavery  as  a 
disturbing  element  in  the  system,  possibly  because  it  existed  still  in 
almost  every  State,  but  chiefly  because  the  growth  and  manufacture  of 
cotton  had  scarce  yet  been  commenced  in  the  United  States — because 
cotton  was  not  yet  crowned  King.  The  vast  extent  of  the  patronage 
of  the  Executive,  and  the  immense  power  and  influence  which  it  exerts, 
seem  also  to  have  been  altogether  under-estimated.  And  independent 
of  all  these,  or  rather,  perhaps,  in  connection  with  them,  there  were 
inherent  defects,  incident  to  the  nature  of  all  governments ;  some  of 
them  peculiar  to  our  system,  and  to  the  circumstances  of  the  coimtry, 
and  the  character  of  the  people  over  which  it  was  instituted,  which  no 
human  sagacity  could  have  foreseen,  but  which  have  led  to  evils, 
mischiefs,  and  abuses,  which  time  and  experience  alone  have  disclosed. 
The  men  avIio  made  our  Government  were  human ;  they  were  men,  and 
they  made  it  for  men  of  like  passions  and  infirmities  with  themselves. 

I  propose  now,  sir,  to  inquire  into  the  practical  workings  of  the 
system ;  the  experiment — as  the  fathers  themselves  called  it — after 
seventy  years  of  trial. 

No  man  will  deny — no  American,  at  least,  and  I  speak  to-day  to  and 
for  Americans — that  in  its  results  it  has  been  the  most  successful  of  any 
similar  Government  ever  established  ;  and  yet,  in  the  very  midst  of  its 
highest  development  and  its  perfect  success,  in  the  very  hour  of  its 
might,  while  "  towering  in  its  pride  of  place,"  it  has  suddenly  been 
stricken  down  by  a  revolution  which  it  is  powerless  to  control.  Sir,  if  I 
could  believe,  as  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee  (Mr.  Etheridge)  would 


THE   GEE  AT   AMEEICAN   REVOLUTION    OF    1861.      2Tl 

seem  to  have  me  believe,  that  for  more  than  half  a  century  the  South 
has  had  all  that  she  ever  asked,  and  more  than  she  ever  deserved,  and 
that  now,  at  last,  a  few  discontented  spirits  have  been  able  to  precipitate 
already  seven  States  into  insurrection  and  rebellion,  because  they  are 
displeased  with  the  results  of  a  presidential  election  ;  or,  if  I  could 
persuade  myself,  with  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  (Mr.  Adams), 
that  thirteen  States,  or  fifteen  States,  and  eleven  or  twelve  millions  of 
people  have  been  already  drawn,  or  may  soon  be  drawn,  into  a  revolt 
against  the  grandest  and  most  beneficent  Government,  in  form  and  in 
practice,  that  ever  existed,  from  no  other  than  the  trivial  and  most 
frivolous  causes  which  he  has  assigned,  then  I  should,  indeed,  regard  this 
revolution,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are,  as  the  most  extraordinary 
phenomenon  ever  recorded  in  history.  But  the  inuse  of  history  will,  I 
venture  to  say,  not  so  write  it  down  upon  the  scroll  which  she  still  holds 
in  her  hand,  in  that  grand  old  Hall  of  Representatives,  where,  linked  to 
time,  solemnly  and  sadly  she  numbers  out  yet  the  fleeting  hours  of  this 
perishing  Republic.  No ;  believe  me.  Representatives,  the  causes  for 
these  movements  lie  deeper,  and  are  of  longer  duration,  than  all  this. 
If  not,  then  the  malady  needs  no  extreme  medicine,  no  healing  remedies 
nothing,  nothing.  Time,  patience,  forbearance,  quiet — these,  these  alone 
will  restore  the  Union  in  afew"months.  But,  sir,  I  have  not  so  read  the 
history  of  this  country,  especially  for  the  last  fourteen  years.  The 
causes,  I  repeat,  are  to  be  found  in  the  practical  workings  of  the  system, 
and  are  to  be  removed  only  by  remedies  which  go  down  to  the  very 
root  of  the  evil ;  not,  indeed,  by  eradicating  the  passions  which  give  it 
birth  and  strength — for  even  religion  fails  to  accomplish  that  impossible 
mission — but  by  checking  or  taking  away  the  power  with  which  these 
passions  are  armed  for  their  work  of  evil  and  mischief 

I  find,  then,  sir,  the  first  or  remote  cause  which  has  led  to  the  incipient 
dismemberment  of  the  Union,  in  the  infinite  honors  and  emoluments, 
the  immense,  and  continually  increasing,  power  and  patronage  of  the 
Federal  Government.  Every  admission  of  new  States,  every  acquisition 
of  new  territory,  every  increase  of  wealth,  population,  or  resources  of  any 
kind;  all  moral,  social,  intellectual,  or  inventive  development ;  the  press, 
the  telegraph,  the  railroad,  and  the  application  of  steam  in  every  form 
— whatsoever  there  is  of  greatness  at  home,  or  of  national  honor  and 
glory  abroad — all,  all  has  inured  to  the  aggrandizement  of  this  central 
government.  Part  of  this,  certainly,  is  the  result  of  causes  which  no 
,  constitutional  restriction,  no  party  policy,  and  no  statesmanship  can 
control ;  but  much  of  it,  nevertheless,  from  infringements  of  the  Consti- 
tution, and  from  usurpations,  abuses,  corruptions,  and  mal-administration 
of  the  Government.  In  the  very  beginning,  as  I  have  said,  a  fixed 
policy  of  strengthening  the  General  Government,  in  every  department, 


272  VALLANDIGHASl's    SPEECHES. 

was  inaugurated  by  the  Federal  party  ;  and  this  led  to  the  bitter  and 
vehement  strujxgle,  in  the  very  first  decade  of  the  system,  between  the 
Democrat ic-Uepublicans  and  the  Federalists;  between  the  advocates  of 
power,  and  the  friends  of  liberty ;  those  who  leaned  strongly  toward 
the  General  Government,  and  those  who  were  for  State  rights  and  State 
sovereignty — the  followers  of  Hamilton  and  the  disciples  of  Jeflerson — • 
which  eiiiicd,  in  1801,  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Federal  party,  and  the 
inauguration  of  the  Democratic  policy,  which  demanded  a  simple  Gov- 
ernment, a  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution,  no  public  debt,  no 
protective  tariff,  no  system  of  internal  improvements,  no  national  bank, 
hard  money  for  the  public  dues,  and  economical  expenditures;  and  this 
policy,  after  a  long  and  violent  contest  for  more  than  forty  years — a 
contest  marked  with  various  fortune,  and  occasional  defeat,  and  some- 
times temporary  departure  by  its  own  friends — at  last  became  the 
established  policy  of  the  Government,  and  so  continued  until  this  pestilent 
sectional  question  of  slavery  obliterated  old  party  divisions,  and  obscured 
and  hid  over  and  covered  up  for  a  time — if  indeed,  it  has  not  removed 
utterly — some,  at  least,  of  the  ancient  landmarks  of  the  Democratic 
party.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Federal  party,  in 
spite  of  the  final  defeat  of  its  policy,  looking  especially  and  purposely 
to  the  strengthening  of  the  General  Government,  partly  from  natural 
causes,  as  I  have  said,  and  partly  because  the  Democratic  party  has 
sometimes  been  false  to  its  professed  principles — above  all,  to  its  great 
doctrine  of  State  Rights,  and  its  true  and  wise  policy  of  economy  in 
expenditures,  and  decrease  in  executive  patronage  and  influence — the 
Federal  Government  has  gone  on,  steadily  increasing  in  power  and 
strength  and  honor  and  consideration  and  corruption,  too,  from  the  hour 
of  its  inauguration  to  this  day ;  and  when  I  speak  of  "  corruption,"  I 
use  the  word  in  the  sense  in  which  British  statesmen  use  it^ — men  who 
understand  the  word,  and  who  have,  for  a  century  and  a  half,  reduced 
the  thing  itself  to  a  science  and  a  system,  and  have  made  it  an  element 
of  very  great  strength  in  the  British  Government. 

Nor,  sir,  is  this  mischief,  if  mischief  indeed  it  be,  confined  wholly  to 
any  one  department  of  the  General  Government  ?  The  Federal  judiciary 
— ^to  begin  with  it — here  and  in  the  States,  dazzles  the  imagination  and 
invites  the  ambition  of  the  lawyers,  that  not  most  numerous  but  ye^ 
most  powerful  class  of  citizens,  by  its  superior  honors,  its  great  emolu- 
ments, its  life-tenure,  its  faith  in  precedents,  and  its  settled  forms  and 
ancient  practice,  untouched  by  codes  and  unshaken  by  crude  and  reck- 
less and  hasty  legislation.  Ilere,  in  this  venerable  forum,  where  States 
at  home  and  States  and  empires  from  abroad,  and  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment itself,  are  accustomed  to  contend  for  the  judgment  of  the  court, 
whatever  there  yet  remains  of  ancient  and  black-letter  law  ;  whatever  of 


THE   GREAT   AMERICAN    REVOLUTIOiN"    OF    1861.      273> 

veneration  and  rep;ard  for  the  names  and  memories,  and  the  volumes  of 
Littleton,  and  Cokq,  and  Croke,  and  Plowden,  and  the  year  books ;  or 
for  silk  gowns,  and  for  all  else,  too,  that  is  valuable  in  legal  archteology, 
has  taken  refuge,  and  stands  intrenched.  All  that  there  was  of  form 
and  ceremony  and  dignity  and  decorum,  in  the  begimiing  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, is  still  to  be  found  here,  and  only  here;  all  but  the  bench  and 
bar  of  forty  years  ago — the  Marshalls,  and  the  Storys,  the  Harriers,  the 
Pinckneys,  the  Wirts,  and  the  Websters  of  an  age  gone  bv. 

Still,  the  circle  of  honor  through  the  judiciary  is  a  narrow  one,  and  it 
lies  open  to  but  few ;  and  yet,  in  times  past,  the  judiciary  has  done  much 
to  enlarge  the  powers  and  increase  the  consideration  and  importance  of 
the  central  Government. 

But  it  is  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives  which  are  the 
great  objects  of  ambition,  and  the  seats  of  power.  All  the  legislative 
powers  of  this  great  and  mighty  Republic,  whose  name  and  authority 
and  majesty  are  known  and  felt  and  feared,  too,  throughout  the  earth, 
are  vested  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  War,  re\'enues,  credit, 
disbursement,  commerce,  coinage,  the  postal  system,  the  punishment  of 
crimes  upon  the  high  seas,  and  against  the  law  of  nations,  tlie  admission 
of  new  States,  the  disposition  of  the  public  lands,  armies,  navies,  the 
militia — all  belong  to  it  to  control,  together  with  an  unimmbered,  innu- 
merable, and  most  indefinable  host  of  implied  or  derivative  powers : 
whence  funding  systems,  banks,  protective  tariffs,  internal  improvements, 
distributions,  surveys,  explorations,  railroads,  land  grants,  submarine 
telegraphs,  postal  steam  navigation  and  post-roads  upon  the  high  seas, 
plunder  schemes,  speculations,  and  peculations,  pensions,  claims,  the 
acquisition  and  government  of  Territories,  and  a  long  train  of  usurpa- 
tions and  abuses,  all  tending — legitimate  powers  and  illegitimate  assump- 
tions of  power  alike-=— to  aggran<li7.e  the  central  Governinont,  and  to 
make  its  possession  and  control  the  highest  object  of  a  corrupt,  wicked, 
perverted,  and  peculating  ambition,  in  any  party  or  any  section. 

But  great  and  imposing  as  the  powers,  honors,  and  consideration  of 
Congress  are,  the  Executive  department  is  scarce  inferior  iu  any  thing, 
and,  in  some  things,  is  far  superior  to  it*  Your  President  stands  in  the 
place  of  a  king.  There  is  a  divinity  that  doth  hedge  him  in  ;  it  is  the 
divinity  of  patronage.  He  is  the  god  whose  priests  are  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand,  and  whose  worshippers  a  liost  wdiom  no  man  can 
number;  and  the  sacrifices  of  these  priests  and  worshippers  are  literally 
"  a  broken  spirit."  Sir,  your  President  is  commander-in-chief  of  your 
armies,  your  navies,  and  of  the  militia — four  millions  of  men.  He 
carries  on  war,  concludes  peace,  and  makes  treaties  of  every  sort. 
Through  his  qualified  veto,  he  is  a  participant  in  the  entire  legislation 
of  the  Government,  and  it  behooves  the  whole  army  of  speculators, 
18 


^14:  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

jobber^!,  contractors,  and  claimants,  to  propitiate  him  as  well  as  Sena- 
tors and  Representatives,  lie  calls  tlic  Congress  togetlier  on  extra- 
ordinary occasions,  and  adjourns  tliein  in  case  of  disagreement.  He 
appoints  and  receives  ambassadors  and  all  other  diplomatic  ?gents; 
appoints  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  of  other  judicial  tribunals  ; 
cabinet  ministers;  collectors  of  customs,  and  postmasters,  and  controls 
the  appointment  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  other  officers,  of  every 
grade,  from  Secretary  of  State  down  to  the  humblest  tide-vcaiter.  All 
that  is  implied  in  the  word  "  patronage,"  and  all  that  is  meant  by  that 
other  word,  the  "  spoils" — res  det'-stahilis  et  cadiica — a  word  and  a 
thing  unknown  to  the  fathers  of  the  Republic,  all  belong  to  him  to 
control.  His  power  of  appointment  and  removal  at  discretion  makes 
him  the  master  of  every  man  who  would  look  to  the  Executive  for 
lionor  or  emolument;  and  its  tremendous  influence  is  reflected  back 
upon  the  Senate  and  this  House,  on  every  Senator  or  Representative 
who  wDuld  reward  his  friends  for  their  support  at  home,  or  secure  new 
friends  for  a  re-election.  The  Constitution  forbids  titles  of  nobility; 
yet  your  Pre-<ident  is  the  fountain  of  honor.  Sir,  to  pass  by  the  utter 
and  extraordinary  perversion  of  the  original  purpose  of  the  Constitu- 
tion in  the  choice  of  electors  for  the  President — a  perversion  the  result 
of  caucuses,  national  conventions,  and  other  party  machinery,  and 
which  has  led  to  those  violent  and  debauching  presidential  struggles, 
everv  four  years,  for  possession  of  the  immense  spoils  of  the  execu- 
tive office — no  department  has,  in  other  respects  also,  so  utterly  out- 
stripped the  estimate  of  the  founders  of  the  Government,  except,  in- 
deed, of  the  few  who,  like  Patrick  Henry,  were  derided  as  ghost-seers 
and  hypochondriacs. 

Wlien  the  elder  Adams  was  President,  the  great  east-room  of  the 
White  House — where  now,  or  lately,  on  gala  days,  are  gathered  the 
ambassadors  and  ministers  of  a  hundred  courts,  from  Mexico  to  Japan, 
and  the  assembled  wit  and  fashion  and  beauty  and  distinction  of  the 
thirty-three  States  of  the  Union — was  then  used  by  the  excellent  and 
patriotic  wife  of  the  President  as  a  drying-room  for — not  the  maids 
of  honor — but  the  washerwoman  of  the  palace. 

Sir,  there  is  an  incident  connected  with  the  early  settlement  of  this 
city-^— still  the  capitol  of  the  Rcpubli(',  selected  as  the  seat  of  Govern- 
ment, bv  Washington,  the  Father  of  the  Republic,  and  bearing  his 
honored  name — an  incident  which  shows  how  much  he  and  ths  other 
great  men  who  made  the  Constitution  under-estimated  the  power  and 
importance  of  the  Executive.  This  capitol,  within  which  we  now 
deliberate,  fronts  to  the  east.  There  all  your  Presidents  are  iimugu- 
rated ;  and  it  was  the  design  and  the  expectation  of  the  founders  of 
the  citv  that  it  should  extend  to  the  eastward.     There,  sir — there,  in 


THE   GEEAT   AMEBIC  AX    EEYOLUTIOX    OF    1861.       275 

that  direction — was  to  be  the  future  lionie  of  the  American  continent. 
The  Executive  mansion  was  meant  to  be  in  the  rear,  and  to  be  kept  in 
the  rear  of  the  Chambers  of  the  Legislature.  A  long  vista  through 
the  original  forest  trees — a  sort  of  American  mall — was  to  connect 
them  together ;  and  the  President  was  expected  to  enter  below  stairs, 
and  at  the  back  door,  into  this  capitol.  But  he  was  to  be  kept  for  the 
most  part  trans  Tlberem — on  the  other  side  of  the  Tiber.  The  low, 
marshy  ground  to  the  westward,  it  was  supposed,  would  forever  forbid 
the  building  up  of  a  city  between  the  seats  of  legislative  and  executive 
magistracy;  and  the  whole — if,  indeed,  ever  laid  out  at  all — might 
have  become  a  great  national  park.  But  behold  the  strange  perversity 
of  man  I  The  city  has  all  gone  to  the  westward.  The  rear  of  the 
capitol  has  now  become  its  front.  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  instead  of  a 
suburban  drive,  is  now  a  grand  thoroughfare,  the  chief  artery  which 
conveys  the  blood  from  that  which  is  now  the  centre  or  heart  of  the 
system — the  President.  The  Executive  mansion — that  old  castle,  with 
bad  fires  and  without  bells,  to  the  sore  discomfort  of  Mistress  Abigail 
Adams — is  now,  and  has  been  for  years,  the  great  object  of  attraction ; 
and  whereas,  in  the  besrinnins:  of  the  "  taverns" — for  that  was  the  name 
given  them  sixty  years  ago — all  clustered  around  this  capitol,  I  observe 
that  now  the  greatest,  most  flourishing,  and  best  patronized  "  hotel" 
has  established  itself  within  bow-shot  of  the  White  House.  Sir,  the 
power  of  executive  gravitation  has  proved  too  strong  for  the  framers 
of  the  Government  and  the  founders  of  the  city.  Westward  the  course 
of  architecture  has  taken  its  way  ;  and  certainly,  sir — certainly — it  is 
not  because  of  any  especial  attraction  about  that  most  venerable'  of 
ancient  marts — old  Georgetown. 

But  to  resume,  sir.  Xothing  adds  so  much  to  the  power  and  influ- 
ence of  the  Executive  as  a  large  revenue  and  heavy  expenditures ;  and 
if  a  public  debt  be  added,  so  much  the  worse.  Every  dollar  more 
borrowed  or  collected,  and  every  dollar  more  spent,  is  just  so  much 
added  to  the  power  and  value  of  the  executive  ofiice.  Nothing  in  the 
political  history  of  the  country  has  been  so  marked  as  the  steady,  but 
enormous,  increase  in  the  taxation  and  disbursement  of  the  Federal 
Government.  Fifteen  years  ago — to  go  back  no  further — ^just  previous 
to  the  Mexican  War,  the  receipts  of  the  Treasury  were  $29,000,000, 
and  the  expenditures  §27,000,000;  wliile  four  years  ago — only  ten 
years  later — the  receipts  had  run  up  to  §69,000,000,  and  the  expendi- 
tures to ""§7 1,000,000 — the  latter  being  always,  or  nearly  always,  a 
little  in  advance  of  the  former.  Xature,  it  is  said,  sir,  abhors  a  vacuum  : 
but  orovernment — our  frovernment,  at  least — would  seem  to  abhor  a 
plethoric  treasury.  There  are  alwa\s  surgeons,  volunteers  too,  at  that, 
if  need  be,  of  a  verv  f:imous  school  of  surgery,  who  are  ready  to  re- 


276  vallandigham's  speeches. 

sort,  upon  all  occasions,  to  financial  phlebotomy.  Verily,  sir — verily 
these  surcjeons  of  the  executive  hoiisehold  have  sreat  faith  in  a  low 
fiscal  regimen. 

The  collection  and  disbursenoent  of  $80,000,000  a  year,  for  four 
years,  is  a  prize  worth  every  sacrifice.  Tlie  power  of  the  sword,  the 
command  of  armies  and  navies  and  the  militia,  is  itself  a  tremendous 
power;  and,  from  the  ^igns  around  us,  from  all  that  everywhere  meets 
the  eye  or  falls  upon  the  ear,  at  every  step  throughout  this  capital,  I 
am  afraid  that  now  at  length,  and  before  the  close  of  the  last  quarter 
of  the  first  century  of  the  Republic,  it  is  about  to  assume  a  terrible 
significancy,  and  that  the  reign  of  military  despotism  is  henceforth  to 
be  dated  from  this  year.  But,  great  as  this  power  is,  it  is  nothing — 
nothing  as  yet  in  this  country^compared  with  the  power  of  the  purse. 
He  who  commands  that  unnumbered  host  of  eager  and  hungry  expect- 
ants whose  eyes  arc  fixed  upon  the  Treasury,  to  say  nothing  of  that 
other  host  of  seekers  of  office,  is  mightier  far  than  the  commander  of 
military  legions.  The  gentleman  from  Tennessee  (Mr.  Etheridge)  en- 
tertained us  the  other  day  with  a  glowing  picture  of  the  exodus  of  the 
present  incumbents  about  the  executive  offices  and  elsewhere.  Sir,  I 
should  be  pleased,  when  he  next  addresses  the  House,  to  have  his  fine 
powers  of  wit  and  eloquence  tested  by  a  description  of  the  flight  of 
the  incoming  locusts  about  the  fourth  .of  March.  Certainly,  sir — cer- 
tainly— the  departure  of  the  army  of  fat,  sleek,  contented,  well-fed  and 
well-clad  office-holders,  whose  natural  habitat  is  the  Treasury  building, 
or  some  other  of  the  same  sort,  is  a  picture  melancholy  enough  to 
excite  commiseration  in  even  the  hardest  and  the  stoniest  heart.  But 
the  ingress  of  that  other  mighty  host  of  office-seekers,  fifty  to  one — 
lean,  lank,  cadaverous,  hungry,  hollow-eyed,  with  bones  bursting 
through  their  garments,  and  long,  skinny  fingers,  eager  to  clutch  the 
spoils ;  and  stung,  too,  with  the  ceatus  of  that  practical  sort  of  patriot- 
ism which  loves  the  country  for  its  material  benefits,  would  require 
some  part,  at  least,  of  the  powers  of  those  diabolical  old  painters  of 
the  Spanish  or  Italian  school.  The  gentleman  will  pardon  me,  but  I 
am  sure  that  even  he  is  not  equal  to  it. 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  central  Government  of  the  United  States, 
and  such  its  powers  and  honors  and  emoluments;  and  every  year  adds 
streniTfth  to  them.  Aijainst  the  centralizing  tendencies  and  influences 
of  such  a  Government,  the  States,  separately,  cannot  contend.  Neither 
ambition  nor  avarice,  the  love  of  honor,  or  the  love  of  gain,  find  any 
thing  to  satisfy  their  large  desires  in  the  State  governments.  Sir,  the 
State  executives  have  no  cabinets,  no  veto  for  the  most  part,  no  army, 
no  navy,  no  militia,  except  upon  the  peace  establishment,  and  that 
commonly  despised ;  no  foreign  appointments,  and  no  diplomatic  in- 


THE   GREAT   AMEBIC AI!«"   REVOLUTION    OF    1861.        277 

tercourse ;  no  treaties,  no  post-office,  no  land-office,  no  great  revenues 
to  disburse  ;  small  salaries,  and  no  patronage — in  short,  sir,  nothing  to 
arouse  ambition,  or  to  excite  avarice.  The  Legislatures  of  the  States 
have  a  most  vahiable,  but  not  the  most  dignified,  field  of  labor.  They 
declare  no  war,  levy  no  imposts,  regulate  no  external  commerce,  coin 
no  money,  establish  no  post-routes,  oceanic  or  overland ;  make  no  land 
grants,  emit  no  bills  of  credit  of  their  own,  publish  no  Globe,  have  no 
franking  privilege,  and  their  Senators  and  Representatives  serve  the 
State  for  a  few  hundred  dollars  a  year.  The  State  judiciaries,  however 
important  the  litigation  before  them  may  be  to  the  parties,  attract 
commonly  but  small  interest  from  the  public  ;  and,  of  late  years,  no 
great  or  splendid  legal  reputation  is  to  be  acquired,  outside  of  a  few 
of  the  larger  cities  at  least,  either  upon  the  bench  or  at  the  bar  of  the 
State  courts.  Whatever,  sir,  the  dignity  or  power  or  consideration  of 
the  United  States  may  be,  that  of  each  State  is  but  the  one  thirty- 
fourth  part  of  it;  and,  indeed,  for  some  years  past,  the  control  of  the 
State  governments  has,  to  a  great  extent,  been  sought  after  chiefly  as 
an  instruM)entality  for  securing  control  of  legislative,  executive,  or 
judicial  position  in  the  Federal  Government.  And  all  this  mischief — 
for  mischief  certainly  I  must  regard  it — has  been  steadilv  awf/ravated 
by  the  policy  pursued  in  nearly  all  the  States,  of  diminishing,  in  every 
wav,  in  their  constitutions,  and  by  their  laws,  the  dignity,  power,  and 
consideration  of  the  several  departments  of  their  State  governments. 
Short  tenures,  low  salaries,  biennial  sessions,  crude,  hasty,  and  contin- 
ually cliano-infjr  leg^islation,  new  constitutions  everv^ten  years,  and  what- 
ever  else  may  be  classed  under  the  head  of  reform,  falsely  so  called, 
have  bei-n  the  bane  of  State  sovereignty  and  importance.  Indeed,  for 
years  past,  State  constitutions,  laws,  and  institutions  of  everv  sort, 
seem  to  have  been  regarded  as  but  so  many  subjects  for  rude  and  wan- 
ton experiments  at  the  hands  of  reckless  ideologists  or  demagogues. 
But,  besides  all  this,  the  infinite  subdivision  of  political  power  in  the 
States,  fron5  the  chief  departments  of  State  down  through  counties, 
townships,  school-districts,  cities,  towns,  and  villages,'  all  of  which  cer- 
tainly is  very  necessary  and  proper  in  a  democratic  Government,  tends 
very  much  of  itself  to  decrease  the  dignity  and  importance  of  the 
States.  In  short,  sir,  in  nearly  all  the  States,  and  especially  in  the  new 
States,  the  great  purpose  of  the  politicians  would  seem  to  have  been, 
to  ascertain  just  how  feeble  and  simple  and  insignificant  their  govern- 
ments could  be  made — ^just  how^  near  to  a  pure  and  perfect  democracy 
our  representative  form  of  republicanism  can  be  carried.  All  this,  sir, 
would  have  been  well,  and  consistent  enough,  no  doubt,  if  the  States 
were  totally  disconnected,  or  if  the  Federal  Government  could  have 
been  kept  down  equally  low,  simple,  and  democratic.     Certainly,  this 


2 78  VALLAJfDIGHAM's    SrZECHE?.  • 

is  the  true  idea  of.  a  strictly  democratic  form  and  administration  of 
government ;  and  the  nearer  it  is  approaclieil,  the  purer  and  belter  the 
system — in  theory,  at  least.  But  the  experiment  having  been  fairly 
tried,  and  the  fact  settled,  that  in  a  country  so  large,  wealthy,  populous, 
and  enterprising  as  ours  is,  it  is  impossible  to  reduce  down,  or  to  keep 
down,  the  central  Government  to  one  of  economy  and  simplicity,  it  is 
the  true  wisdom  and  policy  of  the  States  to  see  to  it  that  their  own 
separate  governments  are  not  rendered  any  more  insignificant,  at  least, 
than  thev  are  already. 

Such,  sir,  I  repeat,  then,  is  the  central  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  such  its  great  and  tremendous  powers  and  honors  and 
emoluments.  With  such  powers,  such  honors,  such  patronage,  and 
such  revenues,  is  it  any  wonder,  I  ask,  that  every  thing,  yes,  even 
virtue,  truth,  justice,  patriotism,  and  the  Constitution  itself,  should  be 
sacrificed  to  obtain  possession  of  it  ?  There  is  no  such  glittering  prize 
to  be  contended  for  every  four  or  two  years  anywhtjre  throughout  the 
whole  earth  ;  and  accordingly,  from  the  beginning,  and  every  year 
more  and  more,  it  has  been  the  object  of  the  highest  and  lowest,  thg 
purest,  and  the  most  corrupt  ambition  known  among  men.  Parties 
and  combinations  have  existed  from  the  first,  and  have  been  changed, 
and  reorganized,  and  built  up,  and  cast  down,  from  the  earliest  period 
of  our  history  to  this  day,  all  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  the  powers 
and  honors  and  the  moneys  of  the  central  Government.  For  a  good 
many  years  parties  were  organized  upon  questions  of  finance  or  of  po 
litical  economy.  Upon  the  subjects  of  a  permanent  public  debt,  a 
national  bank,  the  public  deposits,  a  protective  tariff,  internal  improve- 
ments, the  disposition  of  the  public  lands,  and  other  questions  of  a 
similar  character,  all  of  them  lookingr  to  the  special  interests  of  the 
moneved  classes,  parties  were,  for  a  long  while,  divided.  The  different 
kinds  of  capitalists  sometimes  also  disagreed  among  themselves — the 
manufacturer  with  the  commercial  men  of  the  country  ;  and,  in  this 
manner,  party  issues  were  occasionally  made  up.  But  the  great  dividing 
line,  at  last,  was  always  between  capital  and  labor — between  the  few 
who  had  money,  and  who  wanted  to  use  the  Government  to  increase 
and  "  protect"'  it,  as  the  phrase  goes,  and  the  many  who  had  little,  but 
wanted  to  keep  it,  and  who  only  asked  Government  to  let  them  alojie. 
Money,  money,  sir,  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  political  contests  of  the 
times;  and  nothing  so  curiously  demonstrates  the  immense  power  of 
money,  as  the  fact,  that  in  a  country  where  there  is  no  entailment  of 
estates,  no  law  of  primogeniture,  no  means  of  keeping  up  vast  accumu- 
lations of  wealth  in  particular  families,  no  exclusive  privileges,  and 
where  universal  suffrage  prevails,  these  contests  should  have  continued, 
with  various  fortune,  for   full   half  a  century.     But,  at  the  last,  the 


THE    GEEAT   AilEEICAN   EEYOLUTION    OF    1861.      279 

opponents  of  Democracy,  known  at  different  periods  of  the  struggle 
by  many  different  names,  but  around  whom  the  moneyed  interests 
always  rallied,  were  overborne,  and  utterly  dispersed.  The  Whig 
party,  their  last  refuge,  the  last  and  ablest  of  the  economic  parties 
died  out ;  and  the  politicians  who  were  not  of  the  Democratic  party, 
with  a  good  many  more,  also,  who  had  been  of  it,  but  who  had  de- 
serted it,  or  whom  it  had  deserted,  were  obliged  to  resort  to  some 
other,  and  new  element  for  an  organization  which  misht  be  made  strong 
enough  to  conquer  and  to  destroy  the  Democracy,  and- thus  obtain 
control  of  the  Federal  Government.  And  most  unfortunately  for  the 
peace  of  the  country,  and  for  the  perpetuity,  I  fear,  of  the  Union 
itself,  they  found  the  nucleus  of  such  an  organization  ready  formed  to 
their  hands — an  organization  odious,  indeed,  in  name,  but  founded  upon 
two  of  the  most  powerful  passions  of  t.he  human  heart :  sectionalism, 
which  is  only  a  narrow  and  localizeii'patriotism,  and  anti-slavery,  or 
love  of  freedom,  which  commonly  is  powerful  just  in  proportion  as  it 
is  very  near  coming  home  to  one's  own  self,  or  very  far  off,  so  that 
either  interest,  or  the  imagination  can  have  full  power  to  act. 

And  here  let  me  remark,  that  it  had  so  happened  that  almost,  if  not 
quite,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government,  the  South,  or  slave- 
holding  section  of  the  Union — partly  because  the  people  of  the  South 
are  chiefly  an  agricultural  and  producing,  a  non-commercial  and  non- 
manufacturing  people,  and  partly  because  there  is  no  conflict,  or  little 
conflict  among  them  between  labor  and  capital,  inasmuch  as  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  capital  owns  a  large  class  of  their  laborers  not  of  the 
white  race  ;  and  it  may  be  also,  because,  as  Mr.  Burke  said,  many  years 
ago,  the  holders  of  slaves  are  "  by  far  the  most  proud  and  jealous  of 
their  freedom,"  and  because  the  aristocracy  of  birth  and  family,  and  of 
talent,  is  more  highly  esteemed  among  them  than  the  aristocracy  of 
wealth — but  no  matter  from  what  cause,  the  fact  was  that  the  South, 
for  fifty  years,  was  nearly  always  on  the  side  of  the  Democratic  party. 
It  was  the  natural  ally  of  the  Democracy  of  the  North,  and  especially 
of  the  West.  Geographical  position  and  identity  of  interests  bound 
us  together ;  and  till  this  sectional  question  of  slavery  arose,  the 
South  and  the  new  States  of  the  West  were  alwavs  tojjether;  and 
the  latter  in  the  beginning,  at  least,  always  Democratic.  Sir,  there  was 
not  a  triumph  of  the  Democratic  party  in  half  a  century,  which  was 
not  won  by  the  aid  of  the  statesmen  and  the  people  of  the  South.  I 
would  not  be  understood,  however,  as  intimating  that  the  South  was 
ever  slow  to  appropriate  her  full  share  of  the  spoils — the  ophna  spolia 
of  victory,  or  especially  that  the  politicians  of  that  great  and  noble  old 
Commonwealth  of  Virginia — God  bless  her — were  ever  remarkable  for 
the  grace  of  self-denial  in  this  regard — not  at  all.     But  It  was  natural, 


280  vallandigham's  speeches. 

sir,  that  tliev  who  had  been  so  many  times,  and  for  so  many  years, 
baffled  and  defeated  by  the  aid  of  the  South,  should  entertain  no  very 
kindly  feelings  towards  her.  And  here  I  must  not  omit  to  say,  that 
all  this  time  there  was  a  powerful  minority  in  the  whole  South,  some- 
times a  majority  in  the  whole  South,  and  always  in  some  of  the  States 
of  the  South,  who  belonged  to  the  several  parties  which,  at  different 
times,  contended  with  the  Democracy  for  the  possession  and  control 
of  the  Federal  Government.  Parties,  in  those  days,  were  not  section- 
al, but  extended  into  every  State,  and  every  part  of  the  Union.  And, 
indeed,  in  the  Convention  of  1787,  the  possibility,  or,  at  least,  the 
probability,  of  sectional  combinations,  seems,  as  I  have  already  said,  to 
have  been  almost  wholly  overlooked.  Washington,  it  is  true,  in  his 
Farewell  Address,  warned  us  against  them,  but  it  was  rather  as  a 
distant  vision  than  as  a  near  reality  ;  and  a  few  years  later,  Mr,  Jeffer- 
son speaks  of  a  possibility  of  tUe  people  of  the  Mississippi  Valley 
seceding  from  the  East ;  for  even  then  a  division  of  the  Union,  North 
and  South,  or  by  slave  lines  in  the  Union,  or  out  of  it,  seems  scarcely 
to  have  been  contemplated.  The  letter  of  Mr.  Jefferson  upon  this 
subject,  dated  in  1803,  is  a  curious  one;  and  I  commend  it  to  the 
attention  of  gentlemen  upon  both  sides  of  the  House. 

So  long,  sir,  as  the  South  maintained  its  equality  in  the  Senate,  and 
something  like  equality  in  population,  strength,  and  material  resources 
in  the  country,  there  was  little  to  invite  aggression,  while  there  were 
the  means,  also,  to  repel  it.  But,  in  the  course  of  time,  the  South 
lost  its  equality  in  the  other  wing  of  the  capitol,  and  every  year 
the  disparity  between  the  two  sections  became  greater  and  greater. 
Meantime,  too,  the  anti-slavery  sentiment,  which  had  lain  dormant  at 
the  North  for  many  years  after  the  inauguration  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, began,  just  about  the  time  of  the  emancipation  in  the  British 
West  Indies,  to  develop  itself  in  great  strength,  and  with  wonderful 
rapidity.  It  had  appeared,  indeed,  with  much  violence  at  the  period 
of  the  admission  of  Missouri,  and  even  then  shook  the  Union  to  its 
foundation.  And  yet,  bow  little  a  sectional  controversy,  based  upon 
such  a  question,  had  been  foreseen  by  the  founders  of  the  Govern- 
ment, may  be  learned  from  Mr.  Jefferson's  letter  to  Mr.  Holmes,  in 
1820,  where  he  speaks  of  it  falling  upon  his  ear  like  "a  fire-bell  in  the 
night."     Said  he : 

► 

"  considered  it,  at  once,  as  the  death-knell  of  the  Union.  It  is  huslied,  indeed, 
for  the  moment ;  but  this  is  a  reprieve  only,  not  a  final  sentence.  A  geographical 
line,  coinciding  with  a  marked  principle,  moral  and  political,'''' — 

Sir,  it  is  this  very  coincidence  of  geographical  line  with  the  marked 
principle,  moral  and  political,  of  slavery,  which  I  propose  to  reach  and 


THE    GREAT   AMERICAN    REVOLUTION    OF    1861.       281 

to  obliterate  in  the  only  way  possible  ;  by  running  other  lines  coinci- 
dino-  with  other  and  less  dangerous  principles,  none  of  them  moral, 
and,  above  all,  with  other  and  conflicting  interests — ■ 

"A  geographical  line,  coinciding  with  a  marked  principle,  moral  and  po- 
litical, once  conceived  and  held  up  to  the  angry  passions  of  men,  wiU  never  be 
obliterated,  and  every  new  irritation  will  mark  it  deeper  and  deeper."     .... 

.  .  .  "  I  regret  that  I  am  now  to  die  in  the  belief  that  the  useless  sacrifice  of 
themselves,  by  the  generations  of  1776,  to  acquire  self-government  and  happiness  to 
their  country,  is  to  be  thrown  away  by  the  unwise  and  unworthy  passions  of  their 
sons ;  and  that  my  only  consolation  is  to  be  that  I  shall  not  live  to  weep  over  it." 

Fortunate  man  !  He  did  not  live  to  weep  over  it.  To-day  he  sleeps 
qnietly  beneath  the  soil  of  his  own  Monticello,unconscious  that  the  mighty 
fabric  of  government  which  he  helped  to  rear — a  government  whose 
foundations  were  laid  by  the  hands  of  so  many  patriots  and  sages,  and 
cemented  by  the  blood  of  so  many  martyrs  and  heroes — -hastens  now, 
day  by  day,  to  its  fall.  What  recks  he,  or  that  other  great  man,  his 
compeer,  fortunate  in  life  and  opportune  alike  in  death,  whose  dust 
they  keep  at  Quincy,  of  those  dreadful  notes  of  preparation  in  every 
State  for  civil  strife  and  fraternal  carnage  ;  or  of  that  martial  array 
which  already  has  changed  this  once  peaceful  capital  into  a  beleaguered 
city  ?  Fortunate  men  !  They  died  while  the  Constitution  yet  survived, 
while  the  Union  survived,  while  the  spirit  of  fraternal  affection  still 
lived,  and  the  love  of  true  American  liberty  lingered  yet  in  the  hearts 
of  their  descendants. 

Sir,  the  antagonism  of  parties  founded  on  money  or  questions  of 
political  economy  having  died  out,  and  the  balance  of  power  between 
the  North  and  the  South  being  now  lost,  and  the  strength  and  dignity, 
and  the  revenues  and  disbursements — the  patronage  and  spoils — of  the 
Federal  Government  having  grown  to  an  enormous  size,  was  any  thing 
■more  natural  than  the  organization,  upon  any  basis  peculiar  to  the 
stronger  section  of  a  sectional  party,  to  secure  so  splendid  and  tempt- 
ing a  prize  ?  Or  was  any  thing  more  inevitable  than  that  the  "  marked 
principle,  moral  and  political,"  of  slavery,  coinciding  with  the  very 
geograpldcal  line  which  divided  the  tivo  sections,  and  appealing  so 
strongly  to  Northern  sentiinfints  and  prejudices,  and  against  which  it 
was  impossible  for  any  man  or  any  party  long  fo  contend,  should  be 
revived  ?  TJnhappil}^,  too,  just  about  this  time,  the  acquisition  of  a 
very  large  territory  from  Mexico,  not  foreseen  or  provided  for  by  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  opened  wide  the  door  for  this  very  question  of 
slavery,  in  a  form  every  way  the  most  favorable  to  the  agitators.  The 
Wilmot  Proviso,  or  Congressional  prohibition. — now,  indeed,  exploded, 
but  which,  nevertheless,  received  in  some  form  or  other,  the  indorse- 
ment of  every  free  State  then  in  the  Union — it  was  proposed  to  estab- 


282  vallattdigham's  speecues. 

lisli  over  the  whole  territory  thus  acquired,  as  well  south  of  36°  30'  as 
noith  of  that  latitude.  The  proposition,  upon  the  other  hand,  to 
extend  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific,  was  rejected  by 
the  votes  of  almost  the  entire  Whig  party,  and  of  a  large  majority,  I 
believe,  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  free  States.  That,  sir,  was  the 
fatal  mistake  of  the  North ;  and  in  tribulation  and  anguish  will  she 
and  the  other  sections  of  the  Union,  and  our  posterity,  too,  for  ages,  it 
may  be,  weep  tears  of  bloody  repentance  and  regret  over  it. 

This  controversy,  however,  sir,  after  having  again  shaken  the  Union 
to  its  centre,  was  at  last,  though  with  great  difficulty,  adjusted  through 
the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  by  the  last  of  the  great  statesmen 
of  the  second  period  of  the  Republic.  But  four  years  afterwards, 
upon  the  bill  to  organize  the  territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  upon 
the  principles  of  the  legislation  of  1850,  the  imprisoned  winds — Eurus, 
Notusque,  creherque  jirocellis  jifricus — were  all  ngaiii  let  Io<:»se  with 
more  than  the  rage  of  a  tropical  hurricane.  The  Missouri  restriction, 
■which  for  years  had  been  denounced  as  a  wicked  and  atrocious  con- 
cession to  slavery,  and  which,  some  thirty  years  before,  had  consigned 
almost  every  free  State  Senator  or  Representative  who  supported  it,  to 
political  oblivion,  became  now  a  most  sacred  compact,  which  it  was 
sacrileo;e  to  touch.  A  distinguished  Senator,  late  the  Governor  of 
Ohio,  vvho  had  entitled  his  great  speech  against  the  adjustment  meas- 
ures of  1850,  "  Union  and  Freedom  without  Compromise,''''  now  put 
forth  his  elaborate  defence,  four  years  later,  of  the  Missouri  testriction, 
with  the  rubric  or  text,  in  ambitious  chavactCTi^, '■'■  Maintain  Plighted 
Faith.''''  But,  .right  or  Avrong,  wise  or  unwise,  at  the  time,  as  the 
repeal  of  that  restriction  imy  have  seemed,  subsequent  acts  and  events 
have  made  it  both  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  Yes,  sir,  I  confess  it.  I, 
who,  as  a  private  citizen,  was  one  of  its  earliest  defenders,  make  open 
confession  of  it  here  todav.  It  was  thiswliich  crave  anew  and  terrible' 
vitality  to  the  languishing  element  of  abolitionism,  and  which  precipi- 
tated, at  least,  a  crisis  which,  I  fear,  was,  nevertheless,  sooner  or  later, 
inevitable.  It  is  the  crisis  of  which  the  President  elect  spoke  three 
years  ago.  It  is,  indeed,  reached.  Would  to  God  it  were  passed, 
also,  in  peace. 

But,  sir,  whether  the  leaders  of  the  movement  against  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  restriction  were  consistent  or  inconsistent,  honest  or  dis- 
honest, the  great  mass  of  the  people  of  the  free  States  were  roused,  for 
a  time,  to  the  highest  indignation  by  it;  and,  inasmuch  as  the  Whig 
party  was  just  then  falling  to  pieces,  wicked,  or  reckless,  or  short- 
sighted men  eagerly  seized  upon  this  unsettled  condition  of  the  public 
mind,  to  reorganize  the  Free  Soil' party  of  1848,  under  a  new  and 
captivating  name,  but  very  nearly  upon  the  principles  of  the  Buffalo 


THE    GREAT   AMERICAN   REVOLUTIOIT   OF    1861.      283 

platform  of  that  year,  thus  abandoning  the  extrenae  abolition  senti- 
ments of  the  Liberty  party,  and  bringinir  up  the  great  majority  of  the 
Whig  party,  and  not  a  few  of  the  Democratic  party,  also,  to  the  Free 
Soil  and  non-slavery  extension  principle ;  and  by  this  compromise, 
forming  and  consolidating  that  powerfid  partv,  whicli,  for  the  first 
time  in  our  history,  by  a  mere  sectional  plurality — in  a  mirority,  in 
fact,  by  a  nnllion  of  votes — has  obtained  possession  of  the  power  and 
patronage  of  the  central  government.  Sir,  if  all  this  had  happened 
solely  by  accident,  and  were  likely  never  to  be  repeated,  porteiitous  as 
it  might  be  of  present  evil,  it  would  have  caused,  and  ought  to  have 
caused,  none  of  the  disasters  which  have  already  followed.  But  the 
DREAD  SECRET  ouce  discloscd,  that  the  immense  powers  and  revenues 
and  honors  and  spoils  of  this  great  and  mighty  republic  may  be  easily 
won,  by  a  mere  sectional  majority,  upon  a  popular  sectional  issue,  will 
never  die  ;  and  new  aggressions  and  new  issues  must  continually  spring 
from  it.  This  is  the  philosophy  and  the  justification  of  the  alarm  and 
consternation  which  have  shaken  the  South  from  the  Potomac  to  the 
Gulf.  It  is  the  philosophy,  and  the  justification,  too,  of  the  amend- 
ment of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  (Mr.  Adams),  and  of  all 
the  other  propositions  for  new  adjustments  and  new  guarantees.  Sir, 
the  gentleman  from  New-  York  (Mr.  Sedgwick)  was  right  when  he 
said  that  there  never  was  any  great  event  which  did  not  spring  from 
some  adequate  cause.  The  South  is  afraid  of  your  sectional  majority, 
organized  and  consolidated  upon  the  abstract  principle  of  hostility  to 
slavery  generally,  and  the  practical  application  of  that  principle  to  the 
exclusion  of  slavery  from  all  the  Territories,  and  its  restriction,  by  the 
power  of  that  sectional  majority,  to  where  it  now  exists.  And  if  this 
be  not  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Republican  party,  I  shall  be 
greatly  obliged  to  some  gentleman  of  that  party  to  tell  me  what  its 
'fundamental  doctrine  is. 

But  unjust  and  oppressive  as  the  South  feel^their  exclusion  from  the 
common  territories  of  the  State  to  be,  they  know  well,  also,  that  the 
propelling  power  of  a  great  moral  and  religious  principle,  as  it  is  re- 
garded in  the  North,  added  to  the  still  more  enduring,  persistent,  and 
prudent  passion  of  ambition,. of  thirst  for  power  and'  place,  for  the  hon- 
ors and  emoluments  of  such  a  government  as  ours,  with  its  half  a  mil- 
lion of  dependents  and  expectants,  and  its  eighty  millions  of  revenues 
and  disbursements,  all,  all  to  be  secured  by  the  Aladdin's  lamp  of  a  sec- 
tional majority,  cannot  be  arrested  or  extinguished  by  any  thing  short 
of  the  suppression  of  the  power  which  makes  it  potent  for  mischief. 
And  nothing  less  than  this,  be  assured,  .will  satisfy  any  considerable 
number  of  even  the  more  moderate  of  the  people  of  the  border  slave 
States,  and  certainly  without  it  there  is  not  the  slightest  hope  of  the 


284  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

return  of  the  States  upon  tlic  Gulf,  :uul  tlius  of  a  restoration  of  the 
Union  as  it  existed  but  three  months  ;itjo.  The  statesiiien  and  the 
people  of  all  these  States  well  know,  also,  that,  by  the  civil  law  of 
every  country,  among  individuals,  and  by  the  law  of  nations,  as  be- 
tween sovereia;n  and  ft)reic[ii  States,  the  power  to  afro-rcss,  aloiif  with 
the  threat  and  the  preparation  to  afrgrcss,  is  a  good  canse  why  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  State  should  be  required  to  give  some  adequate  assurance 
that  the  ])0wer  shall  not  be  used  to  execute  the  threat;  or,  otherwise, 
that  the  power  shall  itself  be  taken  away.  Apply  now,  sir,  these 
principles  to  the  case  in  hand.  The  North  has  the  power  ;  that  power 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  Republican  party,  and  already  thev  have  resolved 
to  use  it  for  the  exclusion  of  the  South  from  all  the  Territories.  There 
shall  be  no  more  extension  of  slaver^'.  More  than  this  :  the  leaders  of 
the  part};^ — many  of  them  leaders  and  founders  of  the  old  Liberty 
Guard,  the  original  Abolition  party  of  the  North — the  very  men  who 
brought  the  masses  of  the  Whig  party,  and  many  of  the  Democratic 
party,  from  utter  indiffeience  and  non-intervention  years 'ago  upon  the 
question  of  slavery,  up  to  the  point  of  no  more  slavery  extension,  and 
persuaded  them,  in  spite  of  the  warning  voice  of  Washington,  in  the 
very  face  of  the  appalling  danger  of  disunion,  to  unite,  for  this  purpose, 
in  a  powerful  sectional  party,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
government — these  self-same  leaders  proclaim  now,  not,  indeed,  as  pres- 
ent doctrines  or  purposes  of  the  Republican  party,  but  as  solemn  ab- 
stract truths,  as  fixed,  existing  facts,  that  there  is  a  "higher  law"  than 
the  Constitution,  and  an  "  irrepressible  conflict"  of  principle  and  inter- 
est, between  the  dominant  and  the  minority  sections  of  the  Union,  and 
that  one  or  the  other  must  conquer  in  fhe  conflict.  Sir,  in  this  contest 
with  ballots,  who  is  it  that  must  conquer — the  section  of  the  minority, 
or  the  section  of  the  majority  ? 

And  now,  sir,  when  sentiments  like  these  are  held,  and  proclaimed — 
deliberately,  solemnly,  repeatedly  proclaimed — by  men,  one  of  whom  is 
now  the  President  elect,  and  the  other  the  Secretary  of  State  of  the  in- 
coming Administration,  is  it  at  all  surprising  that  the  States  of  the  South 
should  be  filled  with  excitement  and  alarm,  or  that  they  should  demand, 
as  almost  with  one  voice  they  have  demanded,  adequate  and  complete 
guarantees  for  their  rights,  and  security  against  aggression  ?  Right  or 
wrong,  justifiably  or  without  cause,  they  have  done  it ;  and  I  lament  to 
say,  that  some  of  these  States  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  throw  oflf 
wholly  the  authority  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  withdraw  them- 
selves from  the  Union.  Sir,  I  will  not  discuss  the  right  of  secession. 
It  is  of  no  possible  avail  now,  either  to  maintain  or  to  condemn  it ;  yet  it 
is  vain  to  tell  me  that  States  cannot  secede.  Seven  States  have  seceded ; 
they  now  refuse  any  longer  to  recognize  the  authority  of  this  govern- 


THE    GEEAT   AMEEICAI^    KEVOLFTIOjST.  2S5 

mcnt,  and  already  have  entered  into  a  new  confederacy,  and  set  up  a 
provisional  government  of  their  own.  In  three  months  their  ao-ents 
and  commissioners  will  return  from  Europe  with  the  recoijnition  of 
Great  Britain  and  France,  and  of  the  other  great  powers  of  the  conti- 
nent. Other  States  at  home  are  preparing  to  unite  with  this  new  con- 
federacy, if  you  do  not  grant  to  them  their  just  and  equitable  demands. 
The  question  is  no  longer  one  of  the  mere  preservation  of  the  Union. 
That  was  the  question  when  we  met  in  this  Chamber  some  two  months 
ago.  Unhappily,  that  day  has  passed  by  ;  and  while  your  "  perilous 
Committee  of  Thirty-three"  debated  and  deliberated  to  gain  time — yes, 
to  gain  time — for  that  was  the  insane  and  most  unstatesmanlike  cry  in 
the  beginning  of  the  session,  star  after  star  shot  madly  from  our 
political  firmament.  The  question  to-day  is  :  How  shall  we  now  keep 
the  States  we  have,  and  restore  those  which  are  lost  ?  Ay,  sir,  restore, 
till  every  wanderer  shall  have  returned,  and  not  one  be  missing  from 
the  "  starry  flock." 

If,  then,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  justly  and  truly  stated  the  causes  which 
have  led  to  those  most  disastrous  results,  if,  indeed,  the  control  of  the 
immense  powers,  honors,  and  revenues — the  spoils — of  the  Federal 
Government,  in  a  word,  if  the  possession  of  power,  and  the  temptation 
to  abuse  it,  be  the  primary  cause  of  the  preseftt  dismemberment  of  the 
United  States,  ought  not  every  remedy  proposed  to  reach  at  once 
the  very  seat  of  the  disease  ?  And  why,  sir,  may  not  the  malady  be 
healed?  Why  cannot  this  controversy  be  adjusted  ?  Has,  indeed,  the 
union  of  these  States  received  the  immedicable  wound?  I  do  not  be- 
lieve it.  Never  was  there  a  political  crisis  for  which  wise,  courageous, 
and  disinterested  statesmen  could  more  speedily  devise  a  remedy. 
British  statesmen  would  have  adjusted  it  in  a  few  weeks.  Twice  cer- 
tainly, if  not  three  times,  in  this  century,  they  have  healed  troubles 
threatening  a  dissolution  of  the  monarchy  and  civil  war,  and  each  time 
healed  them  by  yielding  promptly  to  the  necessities  which  pressed 
upon  them,  giving  up  principles  and  measures  to  which  they  had  every 
way  for  years  been  committed.  They  have  learned  wisdom  from  the 
obstinacy  of  the  king,  who  lost  to  Great  Britain  her  thirteen  colonies ; 
and  have  been  taught,  by  that  memorable  lesson,  to  concede  and  to 
compromise  in  time,  and  to  do  it  radically  ;  and  history  has  pronounced 
it  statesmanship,  not  weakness.  In  each  case,  too,  they  yielded  up, 
not  doctrines  and  a  policy  which  they  were  seeking  for  the  first  time 
to  establish,  but  the  ancient  and  settled  principles,  usages,  and  institu- 
tions of  the  realm ;  and  they  yielded  up  these  to  save  others  yet  more 
essential,  and  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  empire.  They  did  save 
it,  and  did  maintain  it ;  and,  to-day.  Great  Britain  is  stronger  and  more 
prosperous,  and  more  secure  than  any  government  on  the  globe. 


286  vallandigham's  speeches. 

Sir,  no  man  had,  for  a  longer  time,  or  with  a  more  inexorable  firm- 
ness, opposed  Catholic  emancipation  than  the  Dake  of  Wellington  ; 
yet,  when  the  issue  came,  at  last,  between  emancipation  or  civil  war, 
the  hero  of  a  luindrod  battle-fields,  the  conqueror  at  Waterloo,  one 
of  the  greatest  military  commanders  of  modern  times,  yes,  the 
Iron  Dike,  lost  not  a  moment,  but  yielded  to  the  storm,  and  him- 
self led  the  party  which  carried  the  great  measure  of  peace  and  com- 
promise, through  the  very  citadel  of  conservatism — the  House  of  Lords. 
Sir,  he  sought  no  middle  ground,  no  half-way  measure,  confessing 
weakness,  promising  something,  doing  nothing.  And  iu  that  memo- 
rable debate  he  spoke  words  of  wisdom,  moderation,  and  true  cour- 
age, ^'hich  I  commend  to  gentlemen  in  this  House — to  our  Wellington 
outside  of  it,  and  to  all  others,  anywhere,  whose  parched  jaws  seem 
ravenous  for  blood.     He  said  : 

"It  has  been  my  fortune  to  have  seen  much  of  war — more  than  most  men.  I 
have  been  constantly  engaged  in  the  active  duties  of  the  military  profession,  from 
boyhood  until  1  have  grown  gray.  My  life  has  been  passed  in  familiarity  with 
scenes  of  death  and  human  suffering.  Circumstances  have  placed  mo  in  countries 
where  the  war  was  internal — between  opposite  parties  in  the  same  nation ;  and, 
rather  tlian  a  country  I  loved  should  be  visited  with  the  calamities  which  I  havo 
seen,  with  the  unutkrable  horrors  of  civil  war,  I  would  run  any  risk — /  would  make 
any  sacrifice — I woxdd  freely  lay  doicn  my  life.  There  is  nothing  which  destroys 
property  and  pro.«peiity,  and  demoralizes  character,  to  the  extent  which  civil  war 
does.  Bj'  it  the  hand  of  man  is  raised  against  his  neighbor,  against  his  brother, 
and  against  his  father ;  the  servant  betrays  his  master,  and  the  master  ruins  his 
servant.  Yel  this  is  the  resource  to  ivh'.ch  we  must  have  looked — these  are  the  means 
which  we  must-hare  applied,  in  order  to  have  put  an  end  to  this  state  if  things,  if  we 
had  not  ewbraced  the  optibn  of  bringing  forward  the  measure  for  which  I  hold  myself 
responsible." 

Two  y<>ars  later,  sir,  in  a  yet  more  dangerous  crisis  upon  the  Reform 
Bill,  which  the  Commons  had  rejected,  and  when  civil  commotion  and 
discord,  if  not  revolution,  were  again  threatened,  and  it  became  neces- 
sary to  dissolve  the  Parliament,  and,  for  that  purpose,  to  secure  the 
consent  of  a  king  adverse  to  the  dissolution,  the  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England,  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  men  of  the  age — bv,  perhaps, 
the  boldest  and  most  hazardous  experiment  ever  tried  upon  rovaltv — 
surprised  the  king  into  consent,  assuring  him  that  the  further  existence 
of  the  ]-*ailiament  was  incompatible  with  the  peace  and  safetv  of  the 
kingdom ;  and  having,  without  the  royal  command,  summoned  the 
great  officers  of  State,  prepared  the  crown,  the  robes,  the  king's  speech, 
and  whatever  else  was  needed,  and,  at  the  risk  of  the  penalties  of  high 
treason,  ordered,  also,  the  attendance  of  the  troops  required  by  the 
usages  of  the  ceremonv,  he  hurried  the  kinc:  to  the  Chamber  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  where,  in  the  presence  of  the  Commons,  the  Parlia- 


THE   GKEAT   AMERICAIf   EEVOLUTEON    OF    1861.      287 

ment  was  dissolved,  \vhile  each  House  was  still  in  high  debate,  and 
without  other  notice  in  advance  than  the  sound  of  the  cannon  which 
announced  his  majesty's  approach.  Yet  all  this  was  done  in  the 
midst  of  threatened  insurrection  and  rebellion  ;  when  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  and  other  noblemen  were  assaulted 
in  the  streets,  and  their  houses  broken  into  and  mobbed ;  when  Lon- 
don itself  was  threatened  with  capture,  and  the  dying  Sir  Walter 
Scott  w\as  hooted  and  reviled  by  ruffians  at  the  polls.  It  was  done 
while  the  kingdom  was  one  vast  mob;  while  the  cry  rang  through  .all 
England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  that  the  Bill  must  be  carried  through 
Parliament  or  over  Parliament — if  possible,  by  peaceable  means — if 
not  possible,  then  by  force  ;  and  when  the  Prime  Minister  declared,  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  that,  by  reason  of  its  defeat,  "much  blood 
would  be  shed  in  the  struggle  between  the  contending  parties,  and 
that  he  was  perfectly  convinced  that  the  British  Constitution  would 
perish  in  the  conflict."  And,  sir,  when  all  else  failed,  the  king  himself 
at  last  gave  f)ermission,  in  writing,  to  Earl  Grey  and  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, to  create  as  many  new  peers  as  might  be  necessary  to  secure  a 
majority  for  the  Reform  Bill  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

Such,  sir,  is  British  statesmanship.  They  remember,  but  we  hava 
forgotten,  the  lessons  which  our  fathers  taught  them.  Sir,  it  will  be 
the  opprobrium  of  American  statesmanship  forever,  that  this  contro- 
Tcrsy  of  ours  shall  be  permitted  to  end  in  final  and  perpetual  dismem- 
berment of  the  Union. 

I  propose,  now,  sir,  to  consider  briefly,  the  several  propositions 
before  tlie  House  looking  to  the  adjustment  of  our  difficulties  by 
Constitutional  amendment,  in  connection,  also,  with  those  which  I 
have  myself  had  the  honor  to  submit. 

Philosophically  or  logically  considered,  there  are  two  ways  in  which 
the  work  before  us  may  be  eflfected:  the  first,  by  removing  the  tempta- 
tion to  aggress ;  the  second,  by  taking  the  power  away.  Now,  sir,  I 
am  free  to  confess  that  I  do  not  see  how  any  amendment  of  the  Con- 
stitution can  diminish  the  powers,  dignity,  or  patronage  of  the  Federal 
Government,  consistently  with  the  just  distribution  of  power  between 
the  several  departments ;  or  between  the  States  and  the  general 
Government,  consistently  with  its  necessary  strength  and  efficiency. 
The  evil  here,  lies  rather  in  the  administration  than  in  the  organization 
of  the  system ;  and  a  large  part  of  it  is  inherent  in  the  administration 
of  every  government.  The  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the  people,  and 
the  capacity  and  honesty  of  their  representatives,  in  every  department, 
must  be  intrusted  with  the  mitisration  and  correction  of  the  mischief. 
The  less  the  legislation  of  every  kind,  the  smaller  the  revenues  and 
fewer  the    disbursements ;  the  less  the  Government  shall  have  to  do, 


288  vallandigham's  speeches._ 

every  way,  with  debt,  credit,  moneyed  influences,  and  jobs,  and 
schemes  of  every  sort,  the  lon(>;er  peace  can  be  maintained  ;  and  the 
more  the  number  of  the  employes  and  dependents  on  Government 
can  be  reduced,  the  less  will  be  the  patronage  and  the  corruption  of 
the  system,  and  the  less,  therefore,  the  motive  to  sacrifice  truth  and 
justice,  and  to  overleap  the  Constitution  to  secure  the  control  of  it. 
In  other  words,  tlie  more  you  diminish  temptation,  the  more  you  will 
deliver  us  from  the  evil. 

But  I  pass  this  point  by  without  further  remark,  inasmuch  as  none 
of  the  plans  of  adjustment  proposed — either  here  or  in  the  Senate — 
look  to  any  change  of  the  Constitution  in  this  respect.  They  all 
aim — every  one  of  them — at  checking  the  power  to  aggress ;  and, 
except  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  (Mr. 
Adams),  which  goes  much  further  than  mine  in  giving  a  negative  upon 
one  subject  to  every  slave  State  in  the  Union,  they  propose  to  eflfect 
their  purpose  bv  mere  constitutional  prohibitions.  It  is  not  my  pur- 
pose, sir,  to  demand  a  vote  upon  the  propositions  which  *[  liave  myself 
submitted.  I  have  not  the  party  })osition,  nor  the  posver  behind  me, 
nor  with  me,  nor  the  age,  nor  the  experience  which  woidd  justify  me 
in  assuming  the  lead  in  any  great  measure  of  peace  and  conciliation  ; 
but  I  believe,  and  very  respectfully  I  suggest  it,  that  something  similar, 
at  least,  to  these  propositions  will  f(jrm  a  part  of  any  adequate  and 
final  adjustment  which  may  restore  all' the  States  to  the  Federal  Union. 
No,  sir;  I  am  able  now  only  to  follow  where  others  may  lead. 

I  shall  vote  for  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 
(Mr.  Adams) — though  it  does  not  go  far  enough^because  it  ignores 
and  denies  tlie  moral  or  religious  element  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation, 
and  thus  removes,  so  far  at  least,  its  most  dangerous  sting — -fanaticism 
—and,  dealing  with  the  question  as  one  of  mere  policy  and  economy, 
of  pure  politics  alone,  proposes  a  new  and  most  comprehensive  guaran- 
tee for  the  peculiar  institution  of  the  States  of  the  South.  I  shall 
vote,  also,  for  the  Crittenden  propositions — as  an  experiment,  and  only 
as  an  experiment — because  they  proceed  upon  the  same  general  idea 
which  marks  the  Adams  amendment ;  and  whereas,  for  the  sake  of  peace 
and  the  Union,  the  latter  would  give  a  new  security  to  slavery  in  the 
States,  the  former  for  the  self-same  great  and  paramount  object  of 
Union  and  peace,  proposes  to  give  a  new  security  also  to  slavery  in 
the  Territories  south  of  the  latitude  36°  30',  If  the  Union  is  worth 
the  price  which  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  volunteers  to  pay  to 
maintain  it,  is  it  not  richly  worth  the  very  small  additional  price  which 
the  Senator  from  Kentucky  demands  as  the  possible  condition  of  preserv- 
ing it?  Sir,  it  is  the  old  parable  of  the  Roman  Sibyl  ;  and  to-morrow 
she  will  return  with  fewer  volumes,  and,  it  may  be,  at  a  higher  price. 


THE   GEEAT   AMERICAN    EEVOLUTION    OF    1861.       289 

1  shall  vote  to  try  the  Crittenden  propositions,  because,  also,  I  believe 
that  they  are  perliaps  the  least  which  ev^n  the  more  moderate  of  the 
slave  States  would,  under  any  circumstances,  be  willing  to  accept; 
and  because,  North,  South,  and  West.,  the  people  seem  to  have  taken 
hold  of  them,  and  to  demand  them  of  us,  as  an  experiment,  at  least. 
I  am  ready  to  try,  also,  if  need  be,  the  propositions  of  the  Border 
State  Committee,  or  of  the  Peace  Congress  ;  or  any  other  fair,  honor- 
able, and  reasonable  terms,  of  adjustment,  which  may  so  much  as 
promise,  even,  to  heal  our  present  troubles,  and  to  restore  the  Union 
of  these  States.  Sir,  I  am  ready  and  willing  and  anxious  to  try  all 
things  and  to  do  ail  things  "  which  may  become  a  man,"  to  secure 
that  great  object  which  is  nearest  to  my  heart. 

But,  judging  all  of  these  propositions,  nevertheless,  by  the  lights  of 
philosophy  and  statesmanship,  and  as  I  believe  they  will  be  regarded 
by  the  historian  who  shall  come  after  us,  I  find  in  them  all  two  capital 
defects,  which  will,  in  the  end,  prove  them  to  be  both  unsatisfactory  to 
large  numbers'  alike  of  the  people  of  the  free  and  the  slave  States,  and 
wholly  inadequate  to  the  great  purpose  of  the  reconstruction  and 
future  preservation  of  the  Union.  None  of  them — except  that  of  the 
gentleman  from  Massachusetts  (Mr.  Adams),  and  his  in  one  particular 
only — proposes  to  give  to  the  minority  section  any  veto  or  self-protect- 
ing power  against  those  aggressions,  the  temptation  to  which,  and  the 
danger  from  which,  are  the  very  cause  or  reason  for  the  demand  for 
any  new  guarantees  at  all.  They  who  complain  of  violated  faith  in 
the  past,  are  met  only  with  new  promises  of  good  faith  for  the  future; 
they  who  tell  you  that  you  have  broken  the  Constitution  heretofore, 
are  answered  with  proposed  additions  to  the  Constitution,  so  that  there 
may  be  more  room  for  breaches  hereafter.  The  only  protection  here 
oflfered  against  the  aggressive  spirit  of  the  majority,  is  the  simple 
pledge  of  power  that  it  will  not  abuse  itself,  nor  aggress,  nor  usurp, 
nor  amplify  itself  to  attain  its  ends.  You  place,  in  the  distance,  the 
highest  honors,  the  largest  emoluments,  the  most  glittering  of  all 
prizes,  and  then  you  propose,  as  it  were,  to  exact  a  promise  from  the 
race-horse  that  he  will  accommodate  his  speed  to  the  slow-moving  pace 
of  the  tortoise.  Sir,  if  I  meant  terms  of  equality,  I  would  give  the 
tortoise  a  good  ways  the  start  in  the  race. 

My  point  of  objection,  therefore,  is  that  you  do  not  allow  to  that 
very  minority  which,  because  it  is  a  minority,  and  because  it  is  afraid 
of  your  aggressions,  is  now  about  to  secede  and  withdraw  itself  from 
your  Government,  aud  set  up  a  separ.tte  confederacy  of  its  own,  you 
do  not  allow  to  it  the  power  of  self-protection  within  the  Union.  If, 
Representatives,  you  are  sincere  in  your  protestations  that  you  do  not 
mean  to  aggress  upon  the  rights  of  this  minority,  you  deny  yourselves 
]9 


,y 


290  ^'allaxdigham's  speeches. 

nothing  by  these  new  guarantees.  If  you  do  mean  to  aggress,  then 
this  minority  has  a  right  to  demand  self-protection  and  security. 

But,  sir,  there  remains  yet  another,  and  a  still  stronger  objection  to 
these  several  propositions.  Every  one  of  them  proposes  to  recognize, 
and  to  embody  in  the  Constitution,  that  very  sort  of  sectionalism 
which  is  the  immediate  instrumentality  of  the  present  dismemberment 
of  these  States,  and  the  existence  of  which  is,  in  my  judgment,  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  peace  and  stability  of  the  Union.  Every  one  of 
them  recognizes  and  perpetuates  the  division  line  between  slave  labor 
and  free  labor,  that  self-same  '•^geographical  line,  coinciding  7vith  the 
marked  principle,  moral  and  political,''''  of  slavery,  which  so  startled  the 
prophetic  ear  of  Jefferson,  and  which  he  foretold,  forty  years  ago, 
every  irritation  would  mark  deeper  and  deeper,  till,  at  last,  it  would 
destroy  the  Union  itself.  They,  one  and  all,  recognize  slavery  as  an 
existing  and  paramount  element  in  the  politics  of  the  country,  and  yet 
only  promise  that  the  non-slaveholding  majority  section,  immensely  in 
the  majority,  will  not  aggress  upon  the  rights  or  trespass  upon  the 
interests  of  the  slaveholding  minority  section,  immensely  in  the  mi- 
nority.    Adeo  senuerunt  Jupiter  et  Mars? 

Sir,  just  so  long  as  slavery  is  recognized  as  an  element  in  politics  at 
all — just  so  long  as  the  dividing  line  between  the  slave  labor  and  the 
free  labor  States  is  kept  up  as  the  only  line,  with  the  disparity  between 
them  growing  every  day  greater  and  greater — ^just  so  long  it  will  be 
impossible  to  keep  the  peace,  and  maintain  a  Federal  Union  between 
them.  However  sufficient  any  of  these  plans  of  adjustment  might 
have  been  one  year  ago,  or  even  in  December  last,  when  proposed, 
and  prior  to  the  secession  of  any  of  the  States,  I  fear  that  they  will  be 
fonnd  utterly  inadequate  to  restore  the  Union  now.  I  do  not  believe 
that,  alone,  they  wUl  avail  to  bring  back  the  States  which  have  seceded, 
and,  therefore,  to  withhold  the  other  slave  States  from  ultimate  seces- 
sion ;  for,  surely,  no  man  fit  to  be  a  statesman  can  fail  to  foresee  that 
unless  the  cotton  States  can  be  returned  to  the  Union,  the  border 
States  must  and  will,  sooner  or  later,  follow  them  out  of  it.  As  be- 
tween two  confederacies — the  one  non-slaveholding,  and  the  other 
slaveholding — all  the  States  of  the  South  must  belong  to  the  latter, 
except,  possibly,  Maryland  and  Delaware,  and  they,  of  course,  could 
remain  with  the  former  only  upon  the  understanding  that,  just  as  soon 
as  practicable,  slavery  should  be  abolished  within  their  limits.  If 
fifteen  slave  States  cannot  protect  themselves,  and  foel  secure  in  a 
Union  with  eighteen  anti-slavery  States,  how  can  eight  slave  States 
maintain  their  position  and  their  rights  in  a  Union  with  nineteen,  or 
with  thirty  anti-slavery  States?  The  question,  therefore,  is  not  merely, 
What  will  keep  Virginia  in  the  Union,  but  also,  what  will  bring  Geor- 

I 


THE    GllEAT    AMERICAIf    KEVOLUTION    OF    1861.        291 

gia  back  ?  And  here  let  me  say,  that  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  is  a 
large  and  powerful  Union  sentiment  still  surviving  in  all  the  States 
which  have  seceded,  South  Carolina  alone,  perhaps,  excepted;  and  that 
if  the  people  of  those  States  can  be  assured  that  they  shall  have  the 
power  to  protect  themselves,  by  their  own  action,  within  the  Uuion^ 
they  will  gladly  return  to  it,  very  greatly  preferring  protection  within  to 
security  outside  of  it.  Just  now,  indeed,  the  fear  of  danger,  and  your  per- 
sistent and  obstinate  refusal  to  enable  them  to  guard  against  it,  have  de- 
livered the  people  of  those  States  over  into  the  hands,  and  under  the  con- 
trol, of  the  real  secessionists  and  disunionists  among  them  ;  but  give  them 
security,  and  the  means  of  enforcing  it ;  above  all,  dry  up  this  pestilent 
fountain  of  slavery  agitation,  as  a  political  element,  in  both  sections, 
and,  my  word  for  it,  the  ties  of  a  common  ancestry,  a  common  kindred, 
and  common  language ;  the  bonds  of  a  common  interest,  common  dan- 
ger, and  common  safety  ;  the  recollections  of  the  past,  and  of  associa- 
tions not  yet  dissolved,  and  the  bright  hopes  of  a  future  to  all  of  us, 
more  glorious  and  resplendent  than  any  other  country  ever  saw ;  ay, 
sir,  and  visions,  too,  of  that  old  flag  of  the  Union,  and  of  the  music 
of  the  Union,  and  precious  memories  of  the  statesmen  and  heroes  of 
the  dark  days  of  the  Revolution,  will  fill  their  souls  yet  again  with  de- 
sires and  yearnings  intense  for  the  glories,  the  honors,  and  the  material 
benefits,  too,  of  that  Union  which  their  fathers  and  our  fathers  made ; 
and  they  will  return  to  it,  not  as  the  prodigal,  but  with  songs  and  re- 
joicing, as  the  Hebrews  returned  from  the  captivity  to  the  ancient  city 
of  their  kings. 

Proceeding,  sir,  upon  the  principles  which  I  have  already  considered, 
and  applying  them  to  the  causes  which,  step  by  step,  have  led  to  our 
present  troubles,  I  have  ventured,  with  great  deference,  to  submit  the 
propositions,  which  are  upon  the  table  of  the  House.  While  not  in- 
consistent with  any  of  the  other  pending  plans  of  adjustment,  they 
are,  in  my  judgment,  and  again  I  speak  it  with  becoming  deference, 
fully  adequate  to  secure  that  protection  from  aggression,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  confidence,  and,  therefore,  no  peace  and  no  restoration 
for  the  Union. 

There  are  two  maxims,  sir,  applicable  to  all  constitutional  reform, 
both  of  which  it  has  been  my  purpose  to  follow.  In  the  first  place, 
not  to  amend  more,  or  further,  than  is  necessary  for  the  mischief  to  be 
remedied,  and  next,  to  follow  strictly  the  principles  of  the  Constitution 
which  is  to  be  amended;  and  corollary  to  these,  I  might  add,  that 
in  framing  amendments,  the  words  and  phrases  of  the  Constitution 
oiight,  so  far  as  practicable,  to  be  adopted. 

I  propose  then,  sir,  to  do  as  all  others  in  the  Senate  and  the  House 
have  done,  so  far — to  recoornize  the  existence  of  sections  as  a  fixed 


292  yallandigham's  speeches. 

fact,  which,  lamentable  as  it  is,  can  no  longer  be  denied  or  suppressed ; 
but,  for  the  reasons  I  have  already  stated,  I  propose  to  establish  four 
instead  of  two  grand  sections  of  the  Union,  all  of  thera  well  known, 
or  CcO-sily  designated  by  marked,  natural,  or  geographical  lines  and 
boundaries.  I  propose  four  sections  instead  of  two ;  because,  if  two 
only  are  recognized,  the  natural  and  inevitable  division  will  bo  ii\to 
slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding  sections ;  and  it  is  this  very  division, 
cither  by  constitutional  enactment,  or  by  common  consent,  as  hitherto, 
which,  in  my  deliberate  judgment  and  deepest  conviction,  it  concerns 
the  peace  and  stability  of  the  Union,  should  be  forever  hereafter  ig- 
nored. Till  then,  there  cannot  be,  and  will  not  be,  perfect  union  and 
peace  between  these  United  States ;  because,  in  the  first  place,  the 
nature  of  the  question  is  such  that  it  stirs  up,  necessarily,  as  forty  ycais 
of  strife  conclusively  proves,  the  strongest  and  the  bitterest  passions 
and  antagonism  possible  among  men  ;  and,  in  the  next  place,  because 
the  non-slaveholding  section  has  now,  and  will  have  to  the  end,  a  stead- 
ily increasing  majority,  and  enormously  disproportioned  weight  and  in- 
fluence in  the  government ;  thus  combining  that  which  never  can  be 
ver}'  long  resisted  in  any  government — the  temptation  and  the  power 
to  asjorress. 

Sir,  it  was  not  the  mere  geographical  line  which  so  startled  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson, in  1820;  but  the  coincidence  of  that  line  with  the  marked 
principle,  moral  and  political,  of  slavery.  And  now,  sir,  to  remove 
this  very  mischief,  which  he  predicted,  and  which  has  already  happen- 
ed, it  is  essential  that  this  coincidence  should  be  obliterated ;  and  the 
repeated  failure,  for  years  past,  of  all  other  compromises,  based  upon 
a  recognition  of  this  coincidence,  has  proved,  beyond  doubt,  that  it  can- 
not be  obliterated,  unless  it  be  by  other  and  conflicting  lines  of  prin- 
ciple and  interests.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  multiply  the  sections,  and 
thus  eflace  the  slave-labor  and  free-labor  division,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
and  in  this  manner,  to  diminish  the  relative  power  of  each  section. 
And  to  prevent  combinations  among  these  diflferent  sections,  I  propose, 
also,  to  allow  a  vote  in  the  Senate  by  sections,  upon  demand  of  one 
third  of  the  Senators  of  any  section,  and  to  require  the  concurrence 
of  a  majority  of  the  Senators  of  each  section  in  the  passage  of  any 
measure,  in  which,  by  the  Constitution,  it  is  necessary  that  the  House, 
and  therefore,  also,  the  President,  should  concur.  All  this,  sir,  is  per- 
fectly consistent  with  the  principles  of  the  Constitution,  as  shown  in 
the  division  of  the  legislative  department  into  the  two  Houses  of  Con- 
gress ;  the  veto  power ;  the  two-thirds  vote  of  both  Houses  necessary 
to  pass  a  bill  over  the  veto ;  the  provisions  in  regard  to  the  ratification 
of  treaties,  and  amendments  to  the  Constitution ;  but  especially  in  the 
equal  representation  and  sufirage  of  each  State  in  the  Senate,  whereby 


THE    GEEAT    AMERICAX    EEVOLUTIOIS'    OF    1861.        293 

the  vote  of  Delaware,  with  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  vetoes  the 
vote  of  New  York,  with  her  population  of  nearly  four  millions.  If  the 
protection  of  the  smaller  States  against  the  possible  aorgressions  of  the 
larger  States,  required,  in  the  judgment  of  the  fraraers  of  the  Consti- 
tution, this  peculiar,  and,  apparently,  inequitable  provision,  why  shall 
not  the  protection,  by  a  similar  power  of  veto,  of  the  smaller  and 
weaker  sections  against  the  aggressions  of  the  larger  and  stronger  sec- 
tions, not  be  now  allowed,  when  time  and  experience  have  proved  the 
necessity  of  just  such  a  check  upon  the  majority  ?  Does  any  one 
doubt  that,  if  the  men  who  made  the  Constitution  had  foreseen  that 
the  real  danger  to  the  system  lay,  not  in  aggression  by  the  large  upon 
the  small  States,  but  in  geographical  combinations  of  the  strong  sec- 
tions against  the  weak,  they  would  have  guarded  jealously  against  that 
mischief,  just  as  they  did  against  the  danger,  to  which  they  mistakenly 
believed  the  government  to  be  exposed  ?  And  if  this  protection,  sir, 
be  now  demanded  by  the  minority  as  the  price  of  the  Union,  so  just 
and  reasonable  a  provision  ought  not,  for  a  moment,  to  be  denied.  Far 
better  this  than  secession  and  disruption.  This  would,  indeed,  enable 
the  minority  to  fight  for  their  rights  in  the  Union,  instead  of  breaking 
it  to  pieces  to  secure  them  outside  of  it. 

Certainly,  sir,  it  is  in  the  nature  of  a  veto  power  to  each  section  in 
the  Senate;  but  necessity  requires  it,  secession  demands  it,  just  as 
twice,  in  the  history  of  the  Roman  Commonwealth,  secession  demand- 
ed, and  received  the  power  of  the  tribunitian  veto,  as  the  price  of  a 
restoration  of  the  Republic.  The  secession  to  the  Sacred  Mount  se- 
cured, just  as  a  "second  secession,  half  a  century  later,  restored  the  veto 
of  tribunes  of  the  people,  and  reinvigorated  and  preserved  the  Roman 
constitution  for  three  hundred  years.  Vetoes,  checks,  balances,  con- 
current majorities — these,  sir,  are  the  true  conservators  of  free  gov- 
ernment. 

But  it  is  not  in  legislation  alone  that  the  danger,  or  the  temptation 
to  aggress,  is  to  be  found.  Of  the  tremendous  power  and  influence  of 
the  Executive  I  have  already  spoken.  And,  indeed,  the  present  revo- 
lutionary movements  are  the  result  of  the  apprehension  of  executive 
usurpation  and  encroachments,  to  the  injury  of  the  rights  of  the  South. 
But  for  secession,  because  of  this  apprehended  danger,  the  legislative 
department  would  have  remained,  for  the  present  at  least,  in  other  and 
safer  hands.  Hence  the  necessity  for  equal  protection  and  guarantee 
against  sectional  combinations  and  majorities,  to  secure  the  election  of 
the  President,  and  to  control  him  when  elected,  l.propose,  therefore, 
that  a  concurrent  majority  of  the  electors,  or  States,  or  Senators,  as  the 
case  may  require,  of  each  section,  shall  be  necessary  to  the  choice  of 
President  and  Vice-President ;  and  lest,  by  reason  of  this  increased 


294  vat.t.axdigh.vm's  spzzches. 

corapleiity,  there  may  be  a  failure  of  choice  oftencr  than  heretofore,  1 
propose  also  a  special  election  in  such  case,  and  an  extension  of  the 
term,  in  all  cases,  to  six  vears.  This  is  the  outline  of  the  plan ;  the 
details  may  be  learned  in  full  from  the  joint  resolution  itself;  and  I  will 
not  detain  the  House  by  any  further  explanation  now. 

Sir,  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  these  amendments  will  be  to 
preclude  the  possibility  of  sectional  parties  and  combinations  to  obtain 
possession  of  either  the  legislative  or  the  execuTive  power  and  patron- 
age of  the  Federal  Government ;  and,  if  not  to  suppress  totally,  at 
least  very  greatly  to  diminish  the  evil  results  of  national  caucnses,  con- 
▼entions,  and  other  similar  party  appliances.  It  will  no  longer  be  pos- 
sible to  elect  a  President  by  the  votes  of  a  mere  dominant  and  major- 
ity section.  Sectional  issues  must  cease,  as  the  basis,  at  least,  of  larg;^ 
party  organizations.  Ambition,  or  lust  for  power  and  place,  must  look 
no  longer  to  its  own  section,  but  to  the  whole  country  ;  and  he  who 
would  be  President,  or  in  anv  wav  the  foremost  amons:  his  country-- 
men,  must  consult,  henceforth,  the  combined  good,  and  the  good-will, 
too,  of  all  the  sections,  aiid  in  this  way,  consistently  with  the  Constitution, 
can  the  "  genenU  welfare"  be  best  attained.  Thus,  indeed,  will  the  re- 
sult be,  instead  of  a  narrow,  iljiberil.  and  sectional  policy,  an  enlarged 
patriotism  and  extended  public  spirit. 

If  it  be  urged  that  the  plan  is  too  complex,  and,  therefore,  imprac- 
ticable. I  answer  that  w:vs  the  objection,  in  the  beginning,  to  the  whole 
Federal  sys:em,  and  to  almost  every  part  of  it.  It  is  the  argument  of 
the  French  Republicans  against  the  division  of  the  legislative  depart- 
ment into  two  Chambers ;  and  it  was  the  argument  especially  urged  at 
first  against  the  entire  plan  or  idea  of  the  electoral  colleges  for  the 
choice  of  a  President.  But,  if  complex,  I  answer  again,  it  will  prevent 
more  evil  than  good.  If  it  suspend  some  legislation  for  a  time,  I  an- 
swer the  world  is  governed  too  much.  If  it  cause  delay,  sometimes, 
in  both  legislation  and  the  choice  of  President,  I  answer  yet  again, 
better,  far  better  this,  than  disunion  and  the  ten  thousand  complexities, 
peaceful  and  belligerent,  which  must  attend  it.  Better,  infinitely  better 
this,  in  th«  Union,  than  separate  confederacies  outside  of  it,  with  either 
perpetual  war  or  entangling  and  complicated  alliances,  offensive  and 
defensive,  from  henceforth  forever.  To  the  South  I  say  :  If  you  are 
afraid  of  free  State  aggressions  by  Congress  or  the  Executive,  here  is 
abundant  protection  for  even  the  most  timid.  To  the  Republican  party 
of  the  North  and  West  I  say  :  If  you  really  tremble,  as,  for  years  past 
you  would  have  had  us  believe,  over  that  terrible,  but  somewhat  mvth- 
ical  monster — the  slave  power — here,  too,  is  the  utmost  security  for 
you  against  the  possibility  of  its  aggressions.  And,  from  first  to  last, 
allow  me  to  say  that,  being  wholly  negative  in  its  provisions,  this  plan 


THE    GEEAT   AMERICAN    EEVOLUIION    OF    1861.        295 

can  only  prevent  evil,  and  not  work  any  positive  evil  itself.  It  is 
a  shield  for  defence,  not  a  sword  for  aggression.  In  one  word,  let 
me  add,  that  the  whole  purpose  and  idea  of  this  plan  of  adjustnnent, 
which  I  propose,  is  to  give  to  the  several  sections  inside  of  the  Union 
that  power  of  self-protection  which  they  are  resolved,  or  will  some  day 
or  other  be  resolved,  to  secure  for  themselves  outside  of  the  Union. 

I  propose  further,  sir,  that  neither  Congress  nor  a  Territorial  Legisla- 
ture, shall  have  power  to  interfere  with  the  equal  right  of  migration, 
frqm  all  sections,  into  the  Territories  of  the  United  States ;  and  that 
neither  shall  have  power  to  destroy  or  impair  any  rights,  of  either  per- 
son or  property,  in  these  Territories ;  and,  finally,  that  new  States, 
either  when  annexed,  or  when  formed  out  of  any  of  the  Territories, 
with  the  consent  of  Congress,  shall  be  admitted  into  the  Union  with 
any  constitution,  republican  in  form,  which  the  people  of  such  States 
may  ordain. 

And  now,  gentlemen  of  the  South,  why  cannot  you  accept  it?  The 
Federal  Government  has  never  yet,  in  any  way,  aggressed  upon  your 
ri^ts.  Hitherto,  indeed,  it  has  been  in  your  own,  or  at  least  in 
friendly  hands.  You  only  fear,  being  in  the  minority,  that  it  will  ag- 
gress, because  it  has  now  fallen  under  the  control  of  those  who,  you 
believe,  have  the  temptation,  the  will,  and  the  power  to  aggress.  But 
this  plan  of  adjustment  proposes  to  take  away  the  power;  and  of  what 
avail  will  the  temptation,  or  thfe  will  then  be,  without  the  power  to 
execute  ?     Both  must  soon  perish. 

And  why  cannot  you  of  the  Republican  party  accept  it  ?  There  is 
not  a  word  about  slavery  in  it,  from  beginning  to  end — I  mean  in  the 
amendments.  It  is  silent  upon  the  question.  South.of  36°  30',  and 
east  of  the  Rio  Grande,  there  is  scarce  any  territory  which  is  not  now 
within  the  limits  of  some  existing  State  ;  and  west  of  that  river  and  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  as  well  as  north  of  36°  30  ,  and  east  of  those 
mountains,  though  any  new  State  should  establish  slavery,  still  her 
vote  would  be  counted  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  electoral  colleges,  with 
the  non-slaveholding  section,  to  which  she  would  belong ;  just  as  if, 
within  the  limits  of  the  South,  any  State  should  abolish  slavery,  or 
any  new  State,  not  tolerating  slavery,  should  be  admitted,  the  vote  of 
such  State  would  also  be  cast  with  the  section  of  the  South.  How- 
ever slavery  might  be  extende<l,  as  a  mere  form  of  civilization  or  of 
labor,  there  could  be  no  extension  of  it  as  a  mere  aggressive  political 
element  in  the  government.  If  the  South  only  demand  that  the  Fede- 
ral Government  shall  not  be  used  asrgressively  to  prohibit  the  extension 
of  slavery ;  if  she  does  not  desire  to  use  it  herself,  upon  the  other 
hand,  positively  to  extend  the  institution,  then  she  may  well  be  satis- 
fied ;  and  if  you  of  the  Republican  party  do  not  really  mean  to  aggress 


296  vallandigham's  speeches. 

upon  slavery  where  it  now  exists ;  if  you  are  not,  in  fact,  opposed  to 
the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States ;  if,  indeed,  you  do  not  any 
longer  propose  to  use  the  powers  of  the  Federal  Government,  positively 
and  awrcssively,  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories,  but  are  satis- 
fied lo  allow  it  to  take  its  natural  course,  according  to  the  laws  of  in- 
terest or  of  climate,  then  you,  too,  may  well  be  content  with  this  plan 
of  adjustment,  since  it  does  not  demand  of  you,  openly  and  publicly, 
to  deny,  abjure,  and  renounce,  in  so  many  words,  the  more  moderate 
principles  and  doctrines  which  you  have  this  session  professed.  And 
yet  candor  obliges  me  to  de.-lare,  that  this  plan  of  settlement,  and 
every  other  plan,  whatsoever,  which  is  of  the  slightest  value — even  the 
amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  (Mr.  Adams),  is  a 
virtual  dissolution  of  the  Republican  party,  as  a  mere  sectional  and 
anti-slavery  organization  ;  and  this,  too,  will,  in  my  judgment,  be  equally 
the  result,  whether  we  compromise  at  all,  Jind  the  Union  be  thus  re- 
stored, or  whether  it  bo  finally  and  forever  dissolved.  The  people  of 
the  Xorth  and  the  West  will  never  trust  the  destroyers — for  destroyers 
indeed,  you  will  be,  if  you  reject  all  fair  terras  of  adjustment — the  de- 
stroyers of  our  government,  and  such  a  government  as  this,  with  the 
administration  and  control  of  any  other.  You  have  now  the  executive 
department,  as  the  result  of  the  late  election.  Better,  far  better,  reor- 
ganize and  nationalize  your  party,  and  keep  the  government  for  four 
years  in  peace,  and  with  a  Union  of -thirty- four  States,  than  with  the 
shadow  and  mockery  of  a  broken  and  disjointed  Union  of  sixteen  or 
nineteen  States,  ending,  at  last,  in  total  and  hopeless  dissolution. 

Having  thus,  sir,  guarded  diligently  the  rights  of  the  several  States 
and  sections,  anji  given  to  each  section  also  the  power  to  protect  itself, 
inside  of  the  Union,  from  aggression,  I  propose  next  to  limit  and  to 
regulate  the  alleged  right  of  secession,  since  this,  from  a  dormant  ab- 
straction, has  now  become  a  practical  question  of  tremendous  import. 
As  long,  sir,  as  secession  remained  an  untried  and  only  menaced  exper- 
iment, that  confidence,  without  which  no  government  can  be  stable  or 
efBcient,  was  not  shaken  because  it  was  believed  that  actual  secession 
would  ne\*er  be  tried  ;  or,  if  tried,  that  it  must  speedily  and  inglori- 
ously  fail.  The  popular  faith,  cherished  for  years,  has  been  that  the 
Union  could  not  be  dissolved.  To  that  faith  the  Republican  party  was 
indebted  for  its  success  in  the  late  election  ;  and  we,  who  predicted  its 
dissolution,  were  smitten  upon  the  cheek,  and  condemned  to  feed  upon 
bread  of  affliction,  and  water  of  affliction,  like  the  prophet  whom 
Ahab  hated.  But  partial  dissolution  has  already  occurred.  Secession 
has  been  tried,  and  has  proved  a  speedy  and  a  terrible  success.  The 
practicability  of  doing  it,  and  the  way  to  do  it,  have  both  been  estab- 
lished.    Sir,  the  experiment   may  readily  be   repeated — it  will  be  re- 


THE    GEEAT   AMEEICAIf   EEVOLUTION    OF    1861.       297 

peated.  And  is  it  not  madness  and  folly,  then,  to  call  back,  by  adjust- 
ment, the  States  which  have  seceded,  or  to  hold  back  the  States  which 
are  threatening  to  secede,  without  providing  some  safeguard  against 
the  renewal  of  this  most  simple  and  disastrous  experiment?  Can  for- 
eign nations  have  any  confidence,  hereafter,  in  the  stability  of  a  gov- 
ernment which  may  so  readily,  speedily,  and  quietly  be  dissolved  ?  Can 
we  have  any  confidence  among  ourselves  ? 

If  it  be  said  that  it  would  have  availed  nothing  to  check  secession 
in  the  Gulf  States,  even  had  there  been  a  constitutional  prohibition  of 
it.  I  answer,  perhaps  not,  if  it  had  been  total  and  absolute — for  there 
would  have   been   no  alternative  but   submission   or  revolution  ;  and 
hence,  I  propose  only  to  define  and  restrain,  and  to  regulate  this  alleged 
right.     But  I  deny  that,  if  a  particular  mode  of  secession,  had  been 
prescribed  by  the  Constitution,  and  thus  every  other  mode  prohibited, 
it  would  have   been  possible  to  have  secured,  in  any  of  the  seceding 
States — no,  not  even  in  South  Carolina  — a  majority  in  favor  of  sepa- 
rate State  secession,  or  secession  in  any  other  way  than  that  provided 
in  the  Constitution.     No,  sir  ;  it  was  the  almost  universal  belief  in  the 
cotton  States  in  the  unlinrited  rio-ht  of  secession — a  doctrine  recognized 
by  few  in  the  free  States,  but  held  to  by  a  great  many,  if  not  very  gen- 
erally, all  over  the  slave  States — which  made  secession  so  easy.     It  is 
hard   to  bring  any  considerable   number  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States — suddenly,  at  least — up  to  the  point  of  a  palpable  violation  of 
the  Constitution  ;   but  it  is  easy,  very  easy,  to  draw  them  into  any  act 
which  seems  to  be  only  the  exercise  of  one  right  for  the  purpose  of  se- 
curing  and   preserving   the  higher  rights   of  life,   liberty,  person,  and 
property  for  a  whole  State,  or  a  whole  section.     Sir,  it  is  because  of  this 
very  idea  or  notion    among   the  people  of  the  Gulf  States,  that  they 
were  exercising  a  right  reserved  under  the  Constitution,  that  secession 
there,  and  the  establishment  of  a  new  confederacy  and  provisional  gov- 
ernment, have  been  marked  by  so  much  rapidit}',  order,  and  method — 
all  through  the  ballot-box,  and  not  with  the  halter,  or  at  the  point  of 
the  bayonet,  over  oppressed  minorities — and,  for  the  most  part,  with 
so  few  of  the  excesses  and  irregularities  which  have  characterized  the 
progress  of  other  revolutions.      I  would  not  prohibit  totally  the  right 
of  secession,  lest  violent  revolutions  should  follow  ;for  where  laws  and 
constitutions  are  to  be  overleaped,  and  they  who  make  the  revolution 
avow  it  to  be  a  revolution,  and   claim   no  right   except  the   universal 
riofhts  of  man,  such  revolutions  are  commonlv  violent  and  bloodv  within 
themselves ;  and,  even  if  not,  they  cannot  be  resisted  by  the  established 
authorities,  except  at  the  cost  of  civil  war ;  while,  if  submitted  to  in 
silence,  they  tend  to  demoralize  all  government.     It  is  of  vital  impor- 
tance, therefore,  every  way,  in  my  judgment,  that  the  exercise  of  this 


298  vallandigham's  speeches. 

certainly  g'uasi-rev'oliitionary  right  should  be  defined,  limited,  and  re- 
strained ;  and,  accordingly,  I  propose  that  no  State  shall  secede  without 
the  consent  of  the  legislatures  of  all  the  States  of  the  section  to  which 
the  State  proposing  to  secede  may  belong.  This  is,  obviously,  a  most 
reasonable  restraint ;  and  yet,  of  its  sufficiency  no  man  can  doubt, 
when  he  remembers  that,  in  the  present  crisis  of  the  country,  had  this 
provision  existed,  no  State  could  have  obtained  the  absolute  consent, 
at  least,  of  even  one-half  of  the  States  of  the  South. 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  plan  which,  with  great  deference,  and  yet 
with  great  confidence,  too,  in  its  efficiency,  I  would  propose  for  the 
adjustment  of  our  controversies,  and  for  the  restoration  and  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  which  our  fathers  made.  Like  all  human  contri- 
vances, ceutainly,  it  is  imperfect,  and  subject  to  objection.  But  some- 
thing searching,  radical,  extreme,  going  to  the  very  foundations  of 
government,  and  reaching  the  seat  of  the  malady,  must  be  done,  and 
that  right  speedily,  while  the  fracture  is  yet  fresh  and  reunion  is  pos- 
sible. Two  months  ago,  when  I  last  addressed  the  House,  imploring 
you  for  immediate  action,  less,  much  less,  would  have  sufficed  ;  but  we 
learned  no  wisdom  from  the  lessons  of  the  past — and  now,  indeed,  not 
poppy,  nor  mandragora,  nor  other  drowsy  sirup  is  of  any  value  to  ar- 
rest that  revolution,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  to-day — a  revolution 
the  grandest  and  the  saddest  of  modern  times. 


The  following  are  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  proposed  by 
Mr.  Vallandigham,  on  the  7th  of  February,  1861,  to  the  support  of 
\phich  the  foregoing  speech  is  devoted  : 

JOINT  RESOLUTION. 

Whereas  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  a  grant  of  specific  powers, 
delegated  to  the  Federal  Government  by  the  people  of  the  several  States,  all  pow- 
ers not  delegated  to  it,  no*-  prohibited  to  the  States,  being  reserved  to  the  States, 
respectively,  or  to  the  people ;  and  whereas  it  is  the  tendency  of  stronger  govern- 
ments to  enlarge  their  powers  and  jurisdiction  at  the  expense  of  weaker  govern- 
ments, and  of  majorities  to  usurp  and  abuse  power,  and  oppress  minorities,  to  ar- 
rest and  hold  in  check  wliich  tendency,  compacts  and  constitutions  are  made  ;  and 
whereas  the  only  effectual  constitutional  security  for  the  rights  of  minorities — 
whether  as  people  or  as  States — is  the  power  expressly  reserved  in  constitutions, 
of  protecting  those  rights  by  their  own  action ;  and  whereas  this  mode  of  protec- 
tion, by  checks  and  guarantees,  is  recognized  in  the  Federal  Constitution,  as  well 
in  the  case  of  the  equality  of  the  States  in  representation  and  in  suffrage  in  the 
Senate,  as  in  the  provision  for  overruling  the  veto  of  the  President,  and  for  amend- 
ing the  Constitution,  not  to  enumerate  other  examples ;  and  whereas,  unhappily, 
because  of  the  vast  extent  and  diversified  interests  and  institutions  of  the  several 


THE    GllEAT   AMERICAN    REVOLUTION    OF    18S1.        299 

States  of  the  Union,  sectional  divisions  can  no  longer  be  suppressed ;  and  whereas 
it  concerns  the  peace  and  stability  of  the  Federal  Union  and  Government,  that  a 
division  of  the  States  into  mere  slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding  sections,  caus- 
ing, hitherto — and  from  the  nature  and  necessity  of  the  case — inflammatory  and 
disastrous  controversies,  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  ending,  already,  in  present 
disruption  of  the  Union — should  be  forever  hereafter  ignored ;  and  whereas  this 
important  end  is  best  to  be  obtained  by  the  recognition  of  other  sections  without 
regard  to  slavery,  neither  of  which  sections  shall  alone  be  strong  enough  to  op- 
press or  control  the  others,  and  each  be  vested  with  the  power  to  protect  itself 
from  aggressions :  Therefore, 

Resolved,  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Unitid  States  of  Amer- 
ica, in  Congress  assembled  (two-thirds  of  both  Houses  concurring),  That  the  fol- 
lowing Articles  be,  and  are  hereby,  proposed  as  amendments  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  which  shall  be  valid,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  part  of 
said  Constitution,  when  ratified  by  Conventions  in  three-fourths  of  the  several 
States : 

Article  XIII. 

Sec.  1.  The  United  States  are  divided  into  four  sections,  as  follows : 

The  States  of  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island, 
Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  and  all  new  States  an- 
nexed and  admitted  into  the  Union,  or  formed  or  erected  within  th«  jurisdiction  of 
any  of  said  States,  or  by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  of  the  same,  or  of  parts  there- 
of, or  out  of  territory  acquired  north  of  said  States,  shall  constitute  one  section, 
to  be  known  as  the  North. 

The  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  "Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Iowa, 
and  Kansas,  and  all  new  States  annexed  or  admitted  into  the  Union,  or  erected 
withjn  the  jurisdiction  of  any  of  said  States,  or  by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  of 
the  same,  or  of  parts  thereof,  or  out  of  territory  now  held  or  hereafter  acquired 
north  of  latitude  36°  30',  and  east  of  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  shall  con- 
stitute another  section,  to  be  known  as  the  "West. 

The  States  of  Oregon,  and  California,  and  all  new  States  annexed  and  admitted 
into  the  Union,  or  formed  or  erected  witliin  the  jurisdiction  of  any  of  said  States,  or 
by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  of  the  same,  or  of  parte  thereof,  or  out  of  territory 
now  held,  or  hereafter  acquired,  west  of  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  of  the  Rio  Grande,  shall  constitute  another  section,  to  be  known  as  the 
Pacific. 

The  States  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Arkansas,  Tennessee, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  and  all  new  Sjates  annexed  and  admitted  into  the  Union, 
or  formed  or  erected  within  the  jurisdiction  of  any  of  said  States,  or  by  the  junc- 
tion of  two  or  more  of  the  same,  or  of  parts  thereof,  or  out  of  territory  acquired  east 
of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  south  of  latitude  36'  30',  shall  constitute  another  section, 
to  be  known  as  the  South. 

Sec.  2.  On  demand  of  one-third  of  the  Senators  of  any  one  of  the  sections,  on 
any  bill,  order,  resolution,  or  vote,  to  which  the  concurrence  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives may  be  necessary,  except  on  a  question  of  adjournment,  a  vote  shall 
be  had  by  sections,  and  a  majority  of  the  Senators  from  each  section  voting,  shall 
be  necessary  to  the  passage  of  such  bill,  order,  or  resolution,  and  to  the  vaUdity 
of  every  such  vote. 


300  vallai^digham's  speeches. 

Sec.  3.  Two  of  the  electors  for  President  and  Vice-President  sball  be  appointed 
by  each  State,  in  such  manner  as  the  Legislature  thereof  may  direct,  for  the  State 
at  large.  The  other  electors,  to  whicli  each  State  may  be  entitled,  shall  be  chosen 
in  the  respective  Congressional  districts  into  which  the  State  may,  at  the  regular 
decennial  period,  have  been  divided,  by  the  electors  of  each  district,  having  the 
qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous  branch  of  the  State  Le- 
gislature. A  majority  of  all  the  electors  in  each  of  the  four  sections  in  this  article 
established,  shall  be  necessary  to  the  choice  of  President  and  Vice-President ;  and 
the  concurrence  of  a  majority  of  the  States  of  each  section  shall  be  necessary  to 
the  choice  of  President  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  of  the  Senators  from 
each  section  to  the  choice  of  Vice-President  by  the  Senate,  whenever  the  right  of 
choice  shall  devolve  upon  them  respectively. 

Sec.  4.  The  President  and  Vice-President  shall  hold  their  ofiBce  each  during  the 
term  of  six  years ;  and  neither  shall  be  eligible  to  more  than  one  term,  except  by 
the  votes  of  two-thirds  of  all  the  electors  of  each  section,  or  of  the  States  of  each 
section,  whenever  the  right  of  choice  of  President  shall  devolve  upon  the  House 
of  Representatives,  or  of  Senators  from  each  section,  whenever  the  right  of  choice 
of  Vice-President  shall  devolve  upon  tlie  Senate. 

Sec.  5.  The  Congress  shall,  by  law,  provide  for  the  case  of  failure  by  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  choose  a  President,  and  of  the  Senate  to  choose  a  Vice- 
President,  whenever  the  right  of  choice  shall  devolve  upon  them  respectively,  de- 
claring what  oflQcer  shall  then  act  as  President;  and  such  officer  shall  act  accord- 
ingly until  a  President  shall  be  elected.  The  Congress  shall  also  provide  by  law 
for  a  special  election  for  President  and  Vice-President  in  such  case,  to  be  held  and 
completed  within  six  months  from  the  expiration  of  the  term  of  office  of  the  last 
preceding  President,  and  to  be  conducted  in  all  respects  as  provided  for  in  the 
Constitution  for  regular  elections  of  the  same  officer,  except  that  if  the  House  of 
Representatives  shall  not  choose  a  President,  should  the  right  of  choice  devolve 
upon  them,  within  twenty  days  from  the  opening  of  the  certificates  and  counting 
of  the  electoral  votes,  then  the  Vice-President  shall  act  as  President,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  death,  or  other  constitutional  disability  of  the  President.  The  term 
of  office  of  the  President  chosen  under  such  special  election,  shall  continue  sii 
years  from  the  fourth  day  of  March  preceding  such  election. 

AsTiOLa  XIV. 

No  Stat^  shall  secede  without  the  consent  of  the  Legislatures  of  the  States  of 
the  section  to  which  the  State,  proposing  to  secede,  belongs.     The  President  shalL 
have  power  to  adjust  with  secediug  States  all  questions  arising  by  reason  of  their 
secession ;  but  the  terms  of  adjustment  shall  be  submitted  to  the  Congress  for  their 
approval  before  the  same  shall  be  valid. 

Article  XV. 

Neither  the  Congress  nor  a  Territorial  Legislature  shall  have  power  to  interfere 
with  the  right  of  the  citizens  of  any  of  the  States,  within  either  of  the  sections, 
to  migrate  upon  equal  terms  with  the  citizens  of  the  States  within  cither  of  the 
other  sections  to  the  Territories  of  the  United  States :  nor  shall  either  the  Con- 
gress or  a  Territorial  Legislature  have  power  to  destroy  or  impair  any  rights  of 
cither  person  or  property  in  the  Territories. 


THE    GREAT   AJIERICAN    EEVOLUTIOX    OF    1861.        301 

New  States  annexed  for  admission  into  the  Union,  or  formed  or  ere/t.'d  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  other  States,  or  by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  States,  or  parts 
of  States ;  and  States  formed,  with  the  consent  of  the'  Congress,  out  of  any  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,  shall  be  entitled  to  admission  upon  an  equal  footing 
with  the  original  States,  under  any  constitution  establishing  a  government,  repub- 
lican in  form,  which  the  people  thereof  may  ordain,  whenever  such  States,  if 
formed  out  of  any  territory  of  the  United  States,  shall  contain,  within  an  area  of 
not  less  than  sixty  thousand  square  miles,  a  population  equal  to  the  then  existing 
ratio  of  representation,  for  one  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 


A  card,  from  which  the  following  is  extracted,  was  published  by 
Mr.  Vallandigham  in  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer,  ow  the  10th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1860,  a  few  days  after  the  Presidential  election  : 

"  And,  now,  let  nie  add  that  I  did  say — not  in  Washington,  not  at 
a  dinner-table,  not  in  the  presence  of  'fire-eaters,'  but  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  in  a  public  assembly  of  Northern  men,  and  in  a  public 
speech  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  on  the  2d  of  November,  1860 — that, 
'if  any  one  or  more  of  the  States  of  this  Union  should,  at  any  time, 
secede — for  reasons,  of  the  sufficiency  and  justice  of  which,  before 
God,  and  the  great  tribunal  of  history,  they  alone  may  judge — much 
as  I  should  deplore  it,  /  never  would,  as  a  Representative  in  the  Con- 
gress cif  the  United  States,  vote  one  dollar  of  money,  whereby  one  drop 
of  Arnerican  blood  should  be  shed  in  a  civil  war.''  That  sentiment, 
thus  uttered  in  the  presence  of  thousands  of  the  merchants  and  solid 
men  of  the  free  and  patriotic  city  of  New  York,  was  received  with 
vehement  and  long-continued  applause,  the  entire  vast  assemblage  rising 
as  one  man,  and  cheering  for  some  minutes.  And  I  now  deliberately 
repeat  and  reaffirm  it,  resolved,  though  I  stand  alone,  though  all 
others  yield,  and  fall  away,  to  make  it  good  to  the  last  moment  of  my 
public  life.  No  menace,  no  public  clamor,  no  taunts,  no  sneers,  nor 
foul  detraction,  from  any  quarter,  shall  drive  me  from  my  firm  purpose. 
Ours  is  a  government  of  opinion,  not  of  force — a  Union  of  free  will, 
not  of  arras;  and  coercion  is  civil  war — a  war  of  sections,  a  war  of 
States,  waged  by  a  race,  compounded  and  made  up  of  all  other  races, 
full  of  intellect,  cf  courage,  of  will  unconquerable,  and,  when  set  on 
fire  by  passion,  the  most  belligerent  and  most  ferocious  on  the  globe — 
a  civil  war,  full  of  horrors,  which  no  imagination  can  conceive  and  no 
pen  portray.  If  Abraham  Lincoln  is  wise,  looking  truth  and  danger 
fidl  in  the  face,  he  will  take  counsel  of  the  'old  men,'  the  moderates 
of  his  party,  and  advise  peace,  neixotiation,  concession ;  but  if,  like  the 
foolish  son  of  a  wise  king,  he  reject  these  wholesome  counsels,  and 
hearken  only  to  the  madmen  who  threaten  chastisement  with  scorpions, 


302  vallandigham's  speeches. 

lot  him  sec  to  it,  lest  it  be  recorded  at  last  that  none  remained  to  serve 
him,  '  save  tlie  house  of  Judah  only.'  At  least,  if  he  will  forget  the 
secession  of  the  Ten  Tribes,  will  he  not  reuiomber  and  learn  a  lesson 
of  wisdom  from  the  secession  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies  ?" 

In  answer  to  a  gross  telegraphic  misrepresentation  of  this  proposi- 
tion, Mr.  Vallanditj;hani  explained  and  defended  it,  in  a  card  to  the 
Cincinnati  Enquirer^  dated  February  14,  18G1,  as  follows  : 

"My  proposition  looks  xolel//  to  the  restoration  unci  maintenance  of 
the  Union  forever,  by  suggesting  a  mode  of  voting  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  the  electoral  colleges,  by  which  the  causes  which  have  led 
to  our  present  troubles  may,  in  the  future,  be  guarded  against  without 
secession  and  disunion ;  and,  also,  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question, 
as  an  element  in  our  national  politics,  he  forever  hereafter  arrested.  My 
object — the  sole  motive  by  which  I  have  been  guided,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  this  most  fatal  revolution — is  to  maintain  the  Unlon,  and 
not  destroy  it.  When  all  possible  hope  is  gone,  and  the  Union  irre- 
trievably broken,  then,  but  not  till  then,  I  will  be  for  a  Western  con- 
federacy." 

Referring  to  a  statement  in  a  leading  Abolition  paper,  Mr.  Vallan- 
DiaiiAM,  in  a  communication  to  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer,  under  date 
of  Washington,  D.  C,  December  18,  1862,  said  : 

"  Now,  Mr.  Vallandigham  never  proposed  to  divide  '  the  Republic  into 
four  distinct  nationalities.'  So  far  as  any  such  proposition  has  be6n 
suggested  at  all,  it  was  by  General  Scott,  who  even  went  so  far  as  to 
name  the  probable  capitals  of  three  of  those  '  nationalities.'  My 
proposition,  on  the  contrary,  was  to  maintain  the  existing  Union,  or 
'  nationality'  forever,  by  dividing  or  arranging  the  States  into  sections 
within  the  Union,  under  the  Constitution,  for  the  purpose  of  voting  in 
the  Senate  and  electoral  colleges." 


LETTER   TO  R.    II.    HENDRICKSON',  AND  OTHERS,  OF   MIDDLETOWN, 

OHIO. 

Dayton,  May  13,  1861. 
Gentlemen  :  Yours  of  the  9th  instant,  requesting  ray  opinion  upon 
certain  points,  connected  with  what  yon  justly  style  the  present  "  in- 
glorious, and  it  mav  be,  bloody  war,"  has  b-'Cn  received.  That  opinion 
was  Ions:  since  formed,  anil  was  re[)eatpdly  set  forth  through  the  press, 
or  by  speech  and  vote  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  last  winter,  and 
reafHrined   in  a  card,  daied  on  the  17t.h  of  last  month,  a  few  days  after 


WAE    IS    DISUiSriON.  303 

the  commencement  of  the  war.*  But  inasmuch  as  I  never  had  occa- 
sion to  discuss  this  particular  question  at  length,  I  beg  leave  to  adopt 
the  following  admirable  summary  of  the  case,  in  an  extract  from  a 
carefully-prepared  and  exceedingly  able  speech  of  the  Hon.  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  March  loth,  1861  : 

"  I  prefer  such  an  amicable  settlement  to  peaceable  disunion  ,  and  I 
prefer  it  a  thousand  times  to  civil  war.  If  we  can  adopt  such  amend- 
ments as  will  be  satisfactory  to  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
and  the  other  border  States,  the  plan  of  pacification  which  will  satisfy 
them,  will  create  a  Union  party  in  the  Cotton  States,  which  will  soon 
embrace  a  large  majority  of  the  people  in  those  Scates,  and  bring  thera 
back  of  their  own  free  will  and  accord  ;  and  thus  restore,  strengthen, 
and  perpetuate  the  glorious  old  Union  forever.  I  repeat,  whatever 
guarantees  wi,ll  satisfy  Maryland  and  the  border  States  (the  States  now 
in  the  Union),  will  create  a  Union  party  in  the  seceded  States,  that 
will  bring  them  back  by  the  voluntary  action  of  their  own  people. 
You  can  restore  and  preserve  the  government  in  that  mode.  You  can 
do  it  in  no  other. 

"  War  is  disunion.  War  is  final,  eternal  separation.  Hence,  disguise 
it  as  you  may,  every  Union  man  in  America  must  advocate  such 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  as  will  preserve  peace  and  restore  the 
Union ;  while  every  disunionist,  whether  openly  or  secretly  plotting  its 
destruction,  is  the  advocate  of  peaceful  secession,  or  of  war,  as  the 
■surest  means  of  rendering  reunion  and  reconstruction  impossible.  I 
have  too  much  respect  for  his  intellect  to  believe,  for  one  moment,  that 
there  is  a  man  for  wyr  who  is  not  a  disunionist  per  se.  Hence  I  do  not 
mean,  if  I  can  prevent  it,  that  the  enemies  of  the  Union — men  plotting 
to  destroy  it — shall  drag  this  country  into  war,  under  the  pretext  of 
protecting  the  public  property,  and  enforcing  the  laws,  and  collecting 
revenue,  when  their  object  is  disunion,  and  war  the  means  of  accom- 
plishing a  cherished  purpose. 

"  The  disunionists,  therefore,  are  divided  into  two  classes  :  the  one 
open,  the  other  secret  disunionists.  The  one  is  in  favor  of  peaceful 
secession,  and  a  recognition  of  independence;  the  other  is  in  favor  of 
war,  as  the  surest  moans  of  accomplishing  the  object,  and  making  the 
separation  final  and  eternal.  I  am  a  Union  man,  and  hence  against 
war;  but  if  the  Union  must  be  temporarily  broken  by  a  revolution, 
and  the  establishment  of  a  de  facto  government  by  some  of  the  States, 
let  no  act  be  done  that  will  prevent  restoration  and  future  preservation. 
Peace  is  the  only  policy  that  can  lead  to  that  result. 

"  But  we  are  told,  and  we  hear  it.  repeated  everywhere,  that  we  must 

*  See  Supplement,  post,  page  554. 


304  VxVLLAiS'DIGIIA.M's    SPEECHES. 

find  out  whether  wc  have  got  a  government.  '  Have  we  a  govern- 
ment ?'  is  the  question,  and  we  are  toKl  we  must  test  tliat  question  by 
using  the  military  power  to  put  down  all  discontented  spirits.  Sir, 
this  question,  'Have  we  a  government?'  has  l>een  propounded  by 
eveiy  tyrant  who  has  tried  to  keep  his  feet  on  the  necks*  of  the  people, 
since  the  woild  b'uan.  When  the  barons  demanded  Magna  Charta 
from  King  John,  at  Runnymede,  lie  exclaimed,  '  Have  we  a  govern- 
ment V  and  called  for  his  army  to  put  down  the  discontented  barons. 
When  Charles  1.  attempted  to  collect  the  ship-moncv,  in  disregard  of 
the  rights  of  the  people,  and  was  resisted  by  them,  he  exclaimed, 
'Have  we  a  government?  We  cannot  treat  with  rebels;  put  down 
the  traitors;  we  must  show  that  we  have  a  government.'  When 
James  H.  was  driven  from  the  throne  of  England,  fir  trampling  on  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  he  called  for  his  army,  and  exclaiined,  '  Let  us 
show  that  we  have  a  government!'  W^hen  George  HI.  called  upon  his 
army  to  put  down  the  rebellion  in  America,  Lord  North  cried  lustily, 
'No  compromise  with  traitors;  let  us  demonstrate  tliat  we  have  a 
government.'  When,  in  1848,  the  people  rose  upon  their  tv rants  all 
over  Europe,  and  demanded  guarantees  for  their  rights,  every  crowned 
head  exclaimed,  '  Have  we  a  government?'  and  appealed  to  the  army 
to  vindicate  their  authoritv,  and  enforce  the  law. 

"  Sir,  the  history  of  the  world  tdoes  not  fail  to  condemn  the  folly, 
weakness,  and  wickedness  of  that  government  which  draws  its  sword 
upon  its  own  people,  when  they  demanded  guarantees  for  their  rights. 
This  cry,  that  we  must  have  a  government,  is  merely  following  the  ex- 
ample of  the  besotted  Bourbons,  who  never  learned  any  thing  by  mis- 
fortune, never  forgave  an  injury,  never  forgot  an  affront.  Must  we  de- 
monstrate that  we  have  got  a  government,  and  coerce  obedience  without 
reference  to  the  justice  or  injustice  of  the  complaints  ?  Sir,  whenerer 
ten  millions  of  people  proclaim  to  you,  with  one  unaninious  voice,  that 
they  apprehend  their  rights,  their  firesides,  and  their  family  altars,  arc 
in  danger,  it  becomes  a  wise  government  to  listen  to  the  appi'al,  and  to 
remove  the  apprehension.  History  does  not  record  an  example  where 
any  human  government  has  been  strong  enough  to  (•ru>li  ten  millions 
of  people  into  subjection,  when  they  believed  their  rights  and  liberties 
were  imperile<l,  without  first  converting  the  governUiCnt  itself  into  a 
despotism,  and  destroving  the  last  vestige  of  freedom."' 

These  were  the  sentiments  of  the  Democratic  party,  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Union  party,  and  of  a  large  majority  of  the  Republican  presses 
and  party,  only  six  weeks  ago.  They  are  mine.  I  voted  them  repeat- 
edly, alons:  with  every  Democrat  and  Union  man  in  the  House.  I 
have  seen  nothing  to  change,  and  much  to  confirm  them  since  ;  espe- 
ciallv  in   the  secession,  wiihia  the  last  thirty  days,  of  Virginia,  Arkan- 


WAE   IS   DISUNION.  305 

sas,  North  Carolina,  and  Tennessee,  taking  with  them  four  millions  and 
a  half  of  people,  immense  wealth,  inexhaustible  resources,  five  hundred 
thousand  fighting  men,  and  the  grave  of  Washington  and  Jackson.  I 
shall  vote  them  affain. 

Waiving  the  question  of  the  doubtful  legality  of  the  first  proclama- 
tion of  April  IStli,  calling  on  the  militia  for  "three  months,"  under 
the  act  of  1795,  I  will  yet  vote  to  pay  them,  because  they  had  no  mo- 
tive but  supposed  duty,  and  patriotism,  to  move  them ;  and,  moreover, 
they  will  have  rendered  almost  the  entire  service  required  of  them,  be- 
fore Congress  shall  meet.  But  the  audacious  usurpation  of  President 
Lincoln,  for  which  he  deserves  impeachment,  in  daring,  acrainst  the 
very  letter  of  the  Constitution,  and  without  a  shadow  of  law,  to  "raise 
and  support  armies,"  and  to  "  provide  and  maintain  a  navy,"  for  three 
or  five  years,  by  mere  executive  proclamation,  I  will  not  vote  to  sustain 
or  ratify — never.  Millions  for  defense  :  not  a  dollar  or  a  man  for  aggres- 
sive and  offensive  civil  war. 

The  war  has  had  many  motives  for  its  commencement ;  it  can  have 
but  one  result,  whether  it  last  one  year  or  fifty  years — final,  eternal 
separation — disunion.  As  for  the  conquest  and  subjugation  of  the 
South,  I  will  not  impeach  the  intelligence  of  any  man  among  vou,  by 
assuming  that  you  dream  of  it  as  at  any  time  or  in  any  way  possible. 
Remember  the  warning  of  Lord  Chatham  to  the  British  Parliament : 
"My  Lords,  you  cannot  conquer  America."  A  public  debt  of  hun- 
dreds of  millions,  weighing  us  and  our  posterity  down  for  generations, 
we  cannot  escape.  Fortunate  shall  we  be  if  we  escape  with  our  liber- 
ties. Lideed,  it  is  no  longer  so  much  a  question  of  war  with  the  South, 
as  whether  we  ourselves  are  to  have  constitutions  and  a  republican  form 
of  government  hereafter  in  the  North  and  West. 

In  brief :  I  am  for  the  Constitution  first,  and  at  all  hazards  •  for 
whatever  can  now  be  saved  of  the  Union  next ;  and  for  Peace  always, 
as  essential  to  the  preservation  of  either.  But  whatever  any  one  may 
think  of  the  war,  one  thing,  at  least,  every  lover  of  liberty  ought  to 
demand  inexorably :  that  it  shall  be  carried  on  strictly  subject  to  the 
Constitution. 

The  peace  policy  was  tried :  it  arrested  secession,  and  promised  a 
restoration  of  the  Union.  The  policy  of  war  is  now  upon  trial :  in 
twenty  days  it  has  driven  four  States  and  four  millions  and  a  half  of 
people  out  of  the  Union,  and  into  the  Confederacy  of  the  South.  In 
a  little  while  longer  it  will  drive  out,  also,  two  or  four  more  States,  and 
two  millions  or  three  millions  of  people.  War  may,  indeed,  be  the 
policy  of  the  East;  but  peace  is  a  necessity  to  the  West. 

I  would  have  volunteered  nothing,  gentlemen,  at  this  time,  in  re- 
gard to  this  civil  war ;  but,  as  constituents,  you  had  a  right  to  know 
20 


306      '  vallandigham's  speeches. 

my  opinions   and   position ;  and  briefly,  but  most  frankly,  you  have 
them. 

My  only  answer  to  those  who   indulge  in  slander  and  vituperation, 
was  given  in  the  card  of  the  l7th  of  April,  herewith  inclosed.* 


EXECUTIVE  USURPATION. 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  July  10,  1861. f 
"  After  some  time  be  past." 

The  House  was  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  the  subject  under  con- 
sideration, The  State  of  the  Union,  when  Mr.  Vallandigham,  obtaining 
the  floor,  said : 

Mr.  Chairman  :  In  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  the 
other  day  we  swore  to  support,  and  by  the  authority  of  which  we  are 
here  assembled  now,  it  is  written  : 

"  All  legislative  powers  herein  granted,  shall  be  vested  in  a  Congress  of  the 
United  States." 

It  is  further  written,  also,  that  the  Congress,  to  which  all  legislative 
powers  granted,  are  thus  committed — 

"  Shall  make  no  law  abridging  the  freedom  of  speech  or  of  the  press." 

And,  it  is  yet  further  written,  in  protection  of  Senators  and  Reprc- 

*  See  Supplement,  page  554. 

f  This  speech  was  delivered  soon  after  the  opening  of  the  extra  session  of 
Congress,  convened  on  the  4th  of  July,  1861.  No  speech  was  ever  delivered  in 
tiie  midst  of  greater  personal  danger — not  even  Cicero's  defence  of  Milo.  The 
galleries  were  filled  with  an  excited  soldiery  and  infuriated  partisans  threatening 
assassination.  A  leading  Abolition  paper  in  New  York  had,  two  days  before,  de- 
clared that,  if  an  attempt  was  made  to  speak  for  peace,  "the  aisles  of  the  Hall 
would  run  with  blood."  Arbitrary  arrests  for  opinion  and  speech,  had  already 
been  commenced.  Almost  without  sympathy  upon  his  own  side  of  the  House, 
and  with  a  fierce,  insolent,  and  overwhelming  majority  upon  the  other  side,  Mr.  Val 
landigham,  calm,  and  unawed,  met  every  peril,  and  spoke  as  firmly,  solemnly,  and 
earnestly,  as  under  ordinary  circumstances.  The  '•  motto"  prefixed  to  the  speech 
is  from  Lord  Bacon's  Will,  and  is  significant,  interpreted,  as  it  has  now  been,  by 
the  light  of  two  years'  experience.  Some  three  hundred  thousand  copies  of  the 
speech,  in  various  forms,  jvere  published  and  circulated  in  the  United  States.  It 
was  published,  also,  in  England  and  on  the  Continent. 


• 


EXECUTIVE   USURPATION.  307 

sentatives,  in  that  freedom  of  debate  here,  without  which  there  can  be 
no  liberty,  that — 

"For  any  speech  or  debate  in  either  House,  they  shall  not  be  questioned  in  any 
other  place." 

Holding  up  the  shield  of  the  Constitution,  and  standing  here  in  the 
place,  and  with  the  manhood  of  a  Representative  of  the  people,  I  pro- 
pose to  myself  to-day,  the  ancient  freedom  of  speech  used  within  these 
walls,  though  with  somewhat  more,  I  trust,  of  decency  and  discretion, 
than  have  sometimes  been  exhibited  here.  Sir,  I  do  not  propose  to 
discuss  the  direct  question  of  this  civil  war,  in  which  we  are  engaged. 
Its  present  prosecution  is  a  foregone  conclusion  ;  and  a  wise  man  never 
wastes  his  strength  on  a  fruitless  enterprise.  My  position  shall,  at 
present,  for  the  most  part,  be  indicated  by  my  votes,  and  by  the  reso- 
lutions and  motions  which  I  may  submit.  But  there  are  many  ques- 
tions incident  to  the  war,  and  to  its  prosecution,  about  which  I  have 
somewhat  to  say  now. 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  President,  in  the  message  before  us,  demands  the 
extraordinary  loan  of  $400,000,000 — an  amount  nearly  ten  times  greater 
than  the  entire  public  debt,  State  and  Federal,  at  the  close  of  the  Revo- 
lution, in  1V83,  and  four  times  as  much  as  the  total  expenditures  during 
the  three  years'  war  with  Great  Britain,  in  1812. 

Sir,  that  same  Constitution,  which  I  again  hold  up,  and  to  which  I 
give  my  whole  heart,  and  ray  utmost  loyalty,  commits  to  Congress 
alone  the  power  to  borrow  money,  and  to  fix  the  purposes  to  which  it 
shall  be  applied,  and  expressly  limits  army  appropriations  to  the  term 
of  two  years.  Each  Senator  and  Representative,  therefore,  must  judge 
for  himself,  upon  his  conscience  and  his  oath,  and  before  God  and  the 
country,  of  the  justice  and  wisdom  and  policy  of  the  President's  de- 
mand ;  and  whenever  this  House  shall  have  become  but  a  mere  office, 
wherein  to  register  the  decrees  of  the  Executive,  it  will  be  high  time  to 
abolish  it.  But  I  have  a  right,  I  believe,  sir,  to  say  that,  however, 
gentlemen  upon  this  side  of  the  Cliaraber  may  differ  finally  as  to  the 
war,  we  are  yet  firmly  and  inexorably  united  in  one  thing,  at  least,  and 
that  is  in  the  determination  that  our  own  rights  and  dignities  and  privi- 
leges, as  the  Representatives  of  the  people,  shall  be  maintained  in  their 
spirit,  and  to  the  very  letter.  And,  be  this  as  it  may,  I  do  know  that 
there  are  some  here  present  who  are  resolved  to  assert  and  to  exercise 
these  rights  with  becoming  decency  and  moderation,  certainly,  but,  at 
the  same  time,  fully,  freely,  and  at  every  hazard. 

Sir,  it  is  an  ancient  and  wise  practice  of  the  English  Commons,  to 
precede  all  votes  of  supplies  by  an  inquiry  into  abuses  and  grievances, 
and  especially  into  any  infractions  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  by 


308  vallandigham's  speeches. 

the  Executive,  Let  us  follow  this  safe  practice.  We  are  now  in  Com- 
mittee of  the  Whole  on  the  State  of  the  Union  ;  and  in  the  exercise 
of  my  riijht  and  my  duty  as  a  Representative,  and  availing  myself  of 
the  latitude  of  debate  allowed  here,  I  propose  to  consider  the  present 
State  of  the  Union,  and  supply,  also,  some  few  of  the  many  omissiona 
of  the  President  in  the  message  bef  )re  us.  Sir,  he  has  undertaken  to 
give  us  information  of  the  state  of  the  Union,  as  the  Constitution  re- 
quires him  to  do  ;  and  it  was  his  duty,  as  an  honest  Executive,  to 
make  that  information  full,  impartial,  and  complete,  instead  of  spread- 
ing before  us  a  labored  and  lawyerly  vindication  of  his  own  course  of 
policy — a  policy  which  has  precipitated  us  into  a  terrible  and  bloody 
revolution.  He  admits  the  fact;  he  admits  that,  to-day,  we  are  in  the 
midst  of  a  general  civil  war,  not  now  a  mere  petty  insurrection,  to  be 
suppressed  in  twenty  days,  by  a  proclamation  and  a  posse  comitatus  of 
three  months'  militia. 

Sir,  it  has  been  the  misfortune  of  the  President,  from  the  besinninor, 
that  he  has  totally  and  wholly  under-estimated  the  masrnitude  and  char- 
acter  of  the  Revolution  with  which  he  had  to  deal,  or  surely  he  never 
would  have  ventured  upon  the  wicked  and  hazardous  experiment  of  call- 
ing thirty  millions  of  people  to  aru)s  among  themselves,  without  the 
counsel  and  authority  of  Congress.  But  when,  at  last,  he  found  him- 
self hemmed  in  by  the  revolution,  and  this  city  in  danger,  as  he  de- 
clares, and  waked  up  thus,  as  the  proclamation  of  the  15th  of  April 
proves  him  to  have  waked  up,  to  the  reality  and  significance  of  the 
movement,  why  did  he  not  forthwith  assemble  Congress,  and  throw  him- 
self upon  the  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the  Representatives  of  the  States, 
and  of  the  people,  instead  of  usurping  powers  which  the  Constitution 
has  expressly  conferred  upon  us  ?  Ay,  sir,  and  powers  which  Congress 
had,  but  a  little  while  before,  repeatedly  and  emphatically  refused  to  exer- 
cise, or  to  permit  him  to  exercise  ?     But  I  shall  recur  to  this  point  again. 

Sir,  the  President,  in  this  message,  has  undertaken  also  to  giVe  us  a 
summary  of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  the  present  revolution.  He 
has  made  out  a  case — he  might,  in  my  judgment,  have  made  out  a 
much  stronger  case — against  the  secessionists  and  disunionists  of  the 
South.  All  this,  sir,  is  very  well,  as  far  as  it  goes.  But  the  President 
does  not  go  back  far  enough,  nor  in  the  right  direction.  He  forgets 
the  still  stronger  case  against  the  abolitionists  and  disunionists  of  the 
North  and  West.  He  omits  to  tell  us  that  secession  and  disunion  had 
a  New  England  origin,  and  began  in  Massachusetts,  in  1804,  at  the 
time  of  the  Louisiana  purchase ;  were  revived  by  the  Hartford  Con- 
vention, in  1814 ;  and  culminated  during  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  in 
sending  Commissioners  to  Washington,  to  settle  the  terras  for  a  peaceable 
separation  of  New  England  from  the  other  States  of  the  Union.     He 


EXECUTIVE   USUEPATION.  309 

forgets  to  remind  us  and  the  country,  that  this  present  revolution  began 
forty  years  ago,  in  the  vehement,  persistent,  offensive,  most  irritating, 
and  unprovoked  agitation  of  the  slavery  question  in  the  Xorth  and 
West,  from  the  time  of  the  Missouri  controversy,  with  some  short  in- 
tervals, down  to  the  present  hour.  Sir,  if  his  statement  of  the  case 
be  the  whole  truth,  and  wholly  correct,  then  the  Democratic  party,  and 
every  member  of  it,  and  the  Whig  party,  too,  and  its  predecessors, 
have  been  guilty,  for  sixty  years,  of  an  unjust,  unconstitutional,  aad 
most  wicked  policy  in  administering  the  affairs  of  the  government. 

But,  sir,  the  President  ignores  totally  the  violent  and  long-continued 
denunciation  of  slavery  and  slaveholders,  and  especially  since  1835 — 
I  appeal  to  Jackson's  message  for  the  date  and  proof — until  at  last  » 
political  anti-slavery  organization  was  formed  in  the  Xorth  and  West, 
■which  continued  to  gain  strength,  year  after  year,  till,  at  length,  it  had 
destroyed  and  usurped  the  place  of  the  Whig  party,  and  finally  ob- 
tained control  of  every  free  State  in  the  Union,  and  elected  himself, 
through  free  State  votes  alone,  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States. 
lie  chooses  to  puss  over  the  fact,  thakthe  party  to  which  he  thus  owes  his 
place  and  his  present  power  of  mischief,  is  wholly  and  totally  a  sec- 
tional organization  ;  and,  as  such,  condemned  by  Washington,  by  Jef- 
ferson, by  Jackson,  Webster,  and  Clay,  and  by  all  the  founders  and 
preservers  of  the  Republic,  and  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  principles, 
or  with  the  peace,  the  stability,  or  the  existence  even,  of  our  Federal 
system.  Sir,  there  never  was  an  hour,  from  the  organization  of  this 
sectional  party,  when  it  was  not  predicted  by  the  wisest  men  and  truest 
patriots,  and  when  it  ought  not  to  have  been  known  by  every  intel- 
ligent man  in  the  country,  that  it  must,  sooner  or  later,  precipitate  a 
revolution,  and  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  The  President  forgets 
already  that,  on  the  4th  of  March,  he  declared  that  the  platform  of 
that  party  was  "  a  law  unto  him,"  by  which  he  meant  to  be  governed 
in  his  administration ;  and  yet  that  platform  announced  that  whereas 
there  were  two  separate  and  distinct  kinds  of  labor  and  forms  of 
civilization  in  the  two  different  sections  of  the  Union,  vet  that  the 
entire  national  domain,  belonging  in  common  to  all  the  States,  should 
be  taken,  possessed,  and  held  by  one  section  alone,  and  consecratecj  to 
that  kind  of  labor  and  form  of  civilization  alone,  which  prevailed  iu 
that  section  which,  by  mere  numerical  superiority,  had  chosen  the 
President,  and  now  has,  and  for  some  years  past  has  had,  a  majority 
in  the  Senate,  as  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government  it  had  also 
in  the  House.  He  omits,  too,  to  tell  the  country  and  the  world — 
for  he  speaks,  and  we  all  speak  now,  to  the  world,  and  to  posterity — 
that  he  himself,  and  his  prime  minister,  the  Secretary  of  State,  declared, 
three  years  ago,  and  have  maintained  ever  since,  that  there  was  an  "  ir- 


310  VALLAirDIGH.VM's   SPEECHES. 

repressible  conflict"  between  the  two  sections  of  this  Union  ;  that  the 
Union  could  not  endure  part  slave  and  part  free  ;  and  that  the  whole 
power  and  influence  of  the  Federal  Government  must  henceforth  bo 
exerted  to  circumscribe  and  hem  in  slavery  within  its  existing  limits. 

And  now,  sir,  how  comes  it  that  the  President  has  forgotten  to  re- 
mind us,  also,  that  when  the  party  thus  committed  to  the  principle  of 
deadly  hate  and  hostility  to  the  slave  institutions  of  the  South,  and  the 
men  who  bad  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  the  irrepressible  conflict,  and 
who  in  the  dilemma  or  alternative  of  this  conflict,  were  resolved  that 
"the  cotton  and  rice  fields  of  South  Carolina,  and  the  sugar  plantations 
of  Louisiana,  should  ultimatelv  be  tilled  bv  free  labor,"  had  obtained 
power  and  place  in  the  common  Government  of  the  Stales,  the  South, 
except  one  State,  chose  first  to  demand  solemn  constitutional  guarantees 
for  protection  against  the  abuse  of  the  tremendous  power  and  patronage 
and  influence  of  the  Federal  Government,  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
the  great  end  of  the  sectional  conflict,  before  resorting  to  secession  or 
revolution  at  all  ?  Did  he  not  know — how  could  he  be  ignorant  ? — that, 
at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  every  substantive  proposition  for  adjust- 
ment and  compromise,  except  that  offered  by  the  gentleman  from 
Illinois  (Mr.  Kellogg),  and  we  all  know  how  it  was  received — came  from 
the  South  ?     Stop  a  moment,  and  let  us  see. 

The  Committee  of  Thirty-three  was  moved  for  in  this  House  by  a 
gentleman  from  V^irsfinia,  the  second  dav  of  the  session,  and  received 
the  vote  of  every  Southern  Representative  present,  except  only  the 
members  from  South  Carolina,  who  declined  to  vote.  In  the  Senate, 
the  Committee  of  Thirteen  was  proposed  by  a  Senator  from  Kentucky 
(Mr.  Powell),  and  received  the  silent  acquiescence  of  every  Southern 
Senator  present.  The  Crittenden  propositions,  too,  were  submitted 
also  by  another  Senator  from  Kentucky  (Mr.  Crittenden),  now  a 
member  of  this  House ;  a  man,  venerable  for  his  years,  loved  for  his 
virtues,  distinguished  for  his  services,  honored  for  his  patriotism ;  for 
four-and-forty  years  a  Senator,  or  in  other  public  office ;  devoted  from 
the  first  hour  of  his  manhood  to  the  Union  of  these  States  ;  and  who, 
though  he  himself  proved  his  courage  fifty  years  ago,  upon  the  battle- 
field against  the  foreign  enemies  of  his  country,  is  now,  thank  God,  still 
for  compromise  at  home,  to-day.  Fortunate  in  a  long  and  well-spent 
life  of  public  service  and  private  worth,  he  is  unfortunate  only  that  he 
has  survived  a  Union,  and,  I  fear,  a  Constitution,  younger  than  himself. 

The  Border  State  propositions,  also,  were  projected  by  a  gentleman 
from  Maryland,  not  now  a  member  of  this  House,  and  presented  by 
a  gentleman  from  Tennessee  (Mr.  Etheridge),  now  the  Clerk  of  this 
House.  And  yet  all  these  propositions,  coming  thus  from  the  South, 
were  severally  and  repeatedly  rejected  by  the  almost  united  vote  of  the 


EXECUTIVE  USURPATION.  311 

Republican  party  in  the  Senate  and  the  House.  The  Crittenden 
propositions,  with  which  Mr.  Davis,  now  President  of  the  Confederate 
States,  and  Mr.  Toombs,  his  Secretary  of  State,  both  declared,  in  the 
Senate,  that  they  would  be  satisfied,  and  for  which  every  Southern 
Senator  and  Representative  voted — never,  on  any  occasion,  received  one 
solitary  vote  from  the  Republican  party  in  either  House. 

The  Adams  or  Corwin  amendment,  so  called — reported  from  the 
Committee  of  Thirty-three,  and  the  only  substantive  amendment 
proposed  from  the  Republican  side — was  but  a  bare  promise  that 
Congress  should  never  be  authorized  to  do  what  no  sane  man  ever 
believed  Congress  would  attempt  to  do — abolish  Slavery  in  the  States 
where  it  exists;  and  yet,  even  this  proposition,  moderate  as  it  was,  and 
for  which  every  Southern  member  present  voted — except  one — was 
carried  through  this  House  by  but  one  majority,  after  long  and  tedious 
delay,  and  with  the  utmost  difficulty — sixty-five  Republican  members, 
with  the  resolute  and  determined  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  (Mr. 
Hictman)  at  their  head,  having  voted  against  it  and  fought  against  it 
to  the  very  last. 

And  not  this  only,  but,  as  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  last  session, 
let  me  remind  you  that  bills  were  introduced  into  this  House,  pro- 
posing to  abolish  and  close  up  certain  Southern  ports  of  entry; 
to  authorize  the  President  to  blockade  the  Southern  coast,  and  to 
call  out  the  militia,  and  accept  the  services  of  volunteers — not  for 
three  years  merely — but  without  any  limit  as  to  either  numbers  or 
time,  for  the  very  purpose  of  enforcing  the  laws,  collecting  the  revenue, 
and  protecting  the  public  property — and  were  pressed,  vehemently  and 
earnestly,  in  tliis  House,  prior  to  the  arrival  of  the  President  in  this 
city,  and  were  then — though  seven  States  had  seceded,  and  set  up  a 
government  of  their  own — voted  down,  postponed,  thrust  aside,  or  in 
some  other  way  disposed  of,  sometimes  by  large  majorities  in  this 
House,  till,  at  last.  Congress  adjourned  without  any  action  at  all 
Peace,  then  seemed  to  be  the  policy. of  all  parties. 

Thus,  sir,  the  case  stood,  at  twelve  o'clock  on  the  4th  of  March  last, 
when,  from  the  eastern  portico  of  this  capitol,  and  in  the  presence  of 
twenty  thousand  of  his  countrymen,  but  enveloped  in  a  cloud  of 
soldiery,  which  no  other  American  President  ever  saw,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln took  the  oath  of  office  to  support  the  Constitution,  and  delivered 
his  inaugural — a  message,  I  regret  to  say,  not  written  in  the  direct  and 
straightforward  languao-e  which  becomes  an  American  President  and  an 
American  statesman,  and  which  was  expected  from  the  plain,  blunt, 
honest  man  of  the  Northwest — but  with  the  forked  tongue  and  crooked 
counsel  of  the  New  York  politician,  leaving  thirty  millions  of  people  in 
doubt  whether  it  meant  peace  or  war.     But,  whatever  may  have  been 


312  VALLAIsDIOnAil's   SPEECHES. 

the  secret  purpose  and  meaning  of  the  inanornral,  practically,  for  six 
weeks,  the  policy  of  peace  prevailed;  and  they  were  weeks  of  happiness 
to  the  patriot,  and  prosperity  to  the  country.     Business  revived  ;  trade 
returned ;    commerce  flourished.     Never  was  there  a  fairer  prospect 
before  any   people.     Secession  in  the  past  languished,  and  was  spirit- 
less and  harndess;  secession   in  the  future  was  arrested,  and  perished. 
By    overwhelming     nuijorities,    Virgiiiiii,    Kentucky,    North   Carolina, 
Tennessee,  and    Missouri — all  declared  for  the   old    Union,  and   every 
heart  beat  high   with   hope,  that,  in   due  course  of  time,  and  through 
faith  and  patience  and  peace,  and  by  ultimate  and  adequate  compromise, 
every  Slate   would   be  restored  to  it.     It  is  true,  indeed,  sir,  that  the 
Republican  party,  with  great  unanimity,  and  great  earnestness  and  de- 
termination,  liad   resolved   against   all    conciliation   and  compromise. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the   whole  Democratic  party,  and  the  whole 
Constitutiouiil  Union  party,  were  equally  resolved  that  there  should  be 
no  civil  war,  upon  any  pretext :  and  both  sides  prepared  for  an  appeal  to 
that  great  and  final  arbiter  of  all  disputes  in  a  free  country — the  people. 
Sir,  I  do   not  propose   to  inquire,  now,  whether  the  President  and 
his  Cabinet  were  sincere  and  in  earnest,  and  meant,  really,  to  perse- 
vere to  the   end  in  the  policy  of  peace ;  or   whether,  from  the  first, 
they  meant  civil  war,  and  only  waited  to  gain  time  till  they  were  fairly 
seated   in  power,  and  had  disposed,  too,  of  that  prodigious  horde  of 
spoilsmen   and  office-seekers   which  came  down,  at  the  first,  like   an 
avalanche   upon    them.      But    I    do    know   that   the  people   believed 
them   sincere,  and  cordially   ratified   and   approved   of  the  policy   of 
peace — not  as  they  subsequently   responded   to  the  pohcy  of  war,  io 
a  whirlwind  of  passion  and   madness — but  calmly  and  soberly,  and  as 
the  result  of  their  deliberate  and  most  solemn  judgment ;  and  believ- 
ing that  civil  war  was   absolute  and  eternal  disunion,  while  secession 
was  but   partial  and  temporary,  they  cordially  indoi"scd,  also,  the  pro- 
posed  evacuation   of  Sumter,  and  the  other  forts  and  public  property 
within  the  seceded  States.     Nor,  sir,  will  I  stop,  now,  to  explore  the 
several  causes  which  either  led   to  a  change  in  the  apparent  policy, 
or  an   early  development  of  the   original  and    real    purposes  of  the 
Administration.     But  there   are  two   which  I  cannot  pass  by.     And 
the  first  of  these  was  i'arty  necessity,  or  the   clamor  of  politicians, 
and  especially  of  certain  wicked,  reckless,  and  unprincipled  conductors 
of  a  partisan   press.     The   peace   policy  was  crushing  out  the  Repub- 
lican  partv.     Under  that   policv,  sir,  it   was   melting    away  like  snow 
before  the   sun.     The  general  elections  in  Rhode  Island  and  Connecti- 
cut, and  municipal  elections  in   New  York  and  in  the  Western  States, 
gave   abundant  evidence  that  the  people  were  resolved  upon   the  most 
ample  and   satisfactory  constitutional  guarantees    to  the  South,  as  the 


EXECUTIVE   USUEPATIOIT.  313 

price  of  a  restoration  of  the  Union.  And  then  it  was,  sir,  that  the  long 
and  agonizing  howl  of  defeated  and  disappointed  politicians  came  up 
before  the  Administration.  The  newspaper  press  teemed  with  appeals 
and  threats  to  tlie  President.  The  mails  groaned  under  tlie  weight 
of  letters  demanding  a  change  of  policy  ;  while  a  secret  conclave  of 
the  Governors  of  Massachusetts,  New  York,  Ohio,  and  other  States, 
assembled  here,  promised  men  and  money  to  support  tlie  President 
in  the  irrepressible  conflict  which  they  now  invoked.  And  thus  it 
was',  sir,  that  the  necessities  of  a  party  in  the  pangs  of  dissolution, 
in  the  very  hour  and  article  of  death,  demanding  vigorous  measures, 
which  could  result  in  nothing  but  civil  war,  renewed  secession,  and 
absolute  and  eternal  disunion,  were  preferred  and  hearkened  to  before 
the  peace  and  harmony  and  prosperity  of  the  whole  country. 

But  there  was  another  and  yet  stronger  impelling  cause,  without 
which  this  horrid  calamity  of  civil  war  might  have  been  postponed, 
and,  perhaps,  finally  averted.  One  of  the  last  and  worst  acts  of  a 
Congress  which,  born  in  bitterness  and  nurtured  in  convulsion,  literally 
did  those  things  which  it  ought  not  to  have  done,  and  left  undone  those 
things  which  it  ought  to  have  done,  was  the  passage  of  an  obscure,  ill- 
considered,  ill-digested,  and  unstatesraanlike  high  protective  tariff  act, 
commonly  known  as  "The  Morrill  Tariff."  Just  about  the  same 
time,  too,  the  Confederate  Congress,  at  Montgomery,  adopted  our  old 
tariff  of  1857,  which  we  had  rejected  to  make  way  for  the  Morrill  act, 
fixing  their  rate  of  duties  at  five,  fifteen,  and  twent}^  per  cent,  lower 
than  ours.  The  result  was  as  inevitable  as  the  laws  of  trade  are  inexo- 
rable. Trade  and  commerce — and  especially  the  trade  and  commerce 
of  the  West — began  to  look  to  the  South.  Turned  out  of  their  natural 
course,  years  ago,  by  the  canals  and  railroads  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York,  and  diverted  eastward  at  a  heavy  cost  to  the  West,  they  threat- 
ened now  to  resume  their  ancient  and  accustomed  channels — the  water- 
courses— the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi.  And  political  association  and 
union,  it  was  well  known,  must  soon  follow  the  direction  of  trade  and 
interest.  The  city  of  New  York,  the  great  commercial  emporium  of 
the  Union,  and  the  North-west,  the  chief  granary  of  the  Union — began 
to  clamor  now,  loudly,  for  a  repeal  of  the  pernicious  and  ruinous  tariff. 
Threatened  thus  with  the  loss  of  both  political  power  and  wealth,  or 
the  repeal  of  the  tariff,  and,  at  last,  of  both.  New  England — and  Penn- 
sylvania, too,  the  land  of  Penn,  cradled  in  peace — demanded,  now, 
coercion  and  civil  war,  with  all  its  horrors,  as  the  price  of  preserving 
either  from  destruction.  The  subjugation  of  the  South — ay,  sir,  the 
subjugation  of  the  South  ! — I  am  not  talking  to  children  or  fools;  for 
there  is  not  a  man  in  this  House  fit  to  be  a  Representative  here,  who 
does  not  know  that  the  South  cannot  be  forced  to  yield  obedience  to 


314 


VALLANDIGHAJI  S    SPEECHES. 


your  laws  and  authority  again,  until  you  have  conquered  and  subjugated 
her — the  subjugation  of  the  South,  and  the  closing  up  of  her  ports — 
first,  by  force,  in  war,  and  afterwards,  by  tariff-laws,  in  peace — was  de- 
liberately resolved  upon  by  the  East.  And,  sir,  when  once  this  policy 
was  begun,  these  self-same  motives  of  waning  commerce,  and  threatened 
loss  of  trade,  impelled  the  great  city  of  New  York,  and  her  merchants 
and  her  politicians  and  her  press — with  here  and  there  an  honorable 
exception — to  place  herself  in  the  very  front  rank  among  the  worshippers 
of  Moloch.  Much,  indeed,  of  that  outburst  and  uprising  in  the  North, 
which  followed  the  proclamation  of  the  1 5th  of  April,  as  well,  perhaps? 
as  the  proclamation  itself,  was  called  forth,  not  so  much  by  the  fall  of 
Sumter — an  ^vent  long  anticipated — as  by  the  notion  that  the  "insur- 
rection," as  it  was  called,  might  be  crashed  out  in  a  few  weeks,  if  not 
by  the  display,  certainly,  at  least,  by  the  presence  of  an  overwhelm- 
ing force. 

These,  sir,  were  the  chief  causes  which,  along  with  others,  led  to  a 
change  in  the  policy  of  the  Administration,  and,  instead  of  peace,  forced 
us,  headlong,  into  civil  war,  with  all  its  accumulated  horrors. 

But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  or  the  motives  for  the  act, 
it  is  certain  that  there  was  a  change  in  the  policy  which  the  Adminis- 
tration meant  to  adopt,  or  which,  at  least,  they  led  the  country  to  be- 
lieve they  intended  to  pursue,  I  will  not  venture,  now,  to  assert,  what 
may  yet,  some  day,  be  made  to  appear,  that  the  subsequent  acts  of  the 
Administration,  and  its  enormous  and  persistent  infractions  of  the  Con- 
stitution, its  high-handed  usurpations  of  power,  formed  any  part  of  a 
deliberate  conspiracy  to  overthrow  the  present  form  of  Federal-republi- 
can government,  and  to  establish  a  strong  centralized  government  in  its 
stead.  No,  sir ;  whatever  their  purposes  now,  I  rather  think  that,  in 
the  beginning,  they  rushed,  heedlessly  and  headlong,  into  the  gulf,  be- 
lievinor  that,  as  the  seat  of  war  was  then  far  distant  and  difficult  of 
access,  the  display  of  vigor  in  re-enforcing  Sumter  and  Pickens,  and 
m  calling  out  seventy-five  thousand  militia,  upon  the  firing  of  the  first 
gun,  and,  above  all,  in  that  exceedingly  happy  and  original  conceit  of 
commanding  the  insurgent  States  to  "  disperse  in  twenty  days,"  would 
not,  on  the  one  hand,  precipitate  a  crisis ;  while,  upon  the  other,  it  would 
satisfy  its  own  violent  partisans,  and  thus  revive  and  restore  the  falling 
fortunes  of  the  Republican  party. 

I  can  hardly  conceive,  sir,  that  the  President  and  his  advisers  could 
be  guilty  of  the  exceeding  folly  of  expecting  to  carry  on  a  general  civil 
war  by  a  mere  posse  comitatus  of  three-months'  militia.  It  may  be, 
indeed,  that,  with  wicked  and  most  desperate  cunning,  the  President 
meant  all  this  as  a  mere  entering-wedge  to  that  which  was  to  rive  the 
oak  asunder ;  or,  possibly,  as   a  test,  to  learn  the  public  sentiment  of 


EXECUTIVE    USUKPATION^.  315 

the  North  and  West.  But  however  that  may  be,  the  rapid  secession 
and  movements  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Arkansas,  and  Tennessee, 
taking  with  them,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  four  millions  and  a  half  of 
people,  immense  wealth,  inexhaustible  resources,  five  hundred  thousand 
fighting  men,  and  the  graves  of  Washington  and  Jackson,  and  bringing 
up,  too,  in  one  single  day,  the  frontier  from  the  Gulf  to  the  Ohio  and 
the  Potomac,  together  with  the  abandonment,  by  the  one  side,  and  the 
occupation,  by  the  other,  of  Harper's  Ferry  and  the  Norfolk  navy-yard ; 
and  the  fierce  gust  and  whirlwind  of  passion  in  the  North,  compelled 
either  a  sudden  waking-up  of  the  President  and  his  advisers  to  the 
frightful  significancy  of  the  act  which  they  had  committed,  in  heedless- 
ly breaking  the  vase  which  imprisoned  the  slumbering  demon  of  civil 
war,  or  else  a  premature  but  most  rapid  development  of  the  daring 
plot  to  foster  and  promote  secession,  and  then  to  set  up  a  new  and 
strong  form  of  government  in  the  States  which  might  remain  in  the 
Union. 

But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  purpose,  I  assert  here,  to-day,  as  a 
Representative,  that  every  principal  act  of  the  Administration  since  has 
been  a  glaring  usurpation  of  power,  and  a  palpable  and  dangerous  vio- 
lation of  that  very  Constitution  which  this  civil  war  is  professedly  waged 
to  support.  Sir,  1  pass  by  the  proclamation  of  the  15th  of  April,  sum- 
moning the  militia,  not  to  defend  this- capital — there  is  not  a  word 
about  the  capital  in  the  proclamation,  and  there  was  then  no  possible 
danger  to  it  from  any  quarter,  but  to  retake  and  occupy  forts  and 
property  a  thousand  miles  oft' — summoning,  I  say,  the  militia  to  sup- 
press the  so-called  insurrection.  I  do  not  believe,  indeed,  and  no  man 
believed  in  February  last,  when  Mr.  Stanton,  of  Ohio,  introduced  his 
bill  to  enlarge  the  act  of  1795,  that  that  act  ever  contemplated  the  case 
of  a  general  revolution,  and  of  resistance"  by  an  organized  government.' 
But  no  matter.  The  militia  thus  called  out,  with  a  shadow,  at  least, 
of  authority,  and  for  a  period  extending  one  mouth  beyond  the  assem- 
bling of  Congress,  were  amply  sufficient  to  protect  the  capital  against 
any  force  which  was  then  likely  to  be  sent  against  it — and  the  event 
has  proved  it — and  ample  enough,  also,  to  suppress  the  outbreak  in  . 
Maryland.  Every  other  principal  act  of  the  Administration  might  well 
have  been  postponed,  and  ought  to  have  been  postponed,  until  the 
meeting  of  Congress  ;  or,  if  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion  demanded  it. 
Congress  should  forthwith  have  been  assembled.  What  if  two  or  three 
States  should  not  have  been  represented,  although  even  this  need  not 
have  happened ;  but  better  this,  a  thousand  times,  than  that  the  Con- 
stitution should  be  repeatedly  and  flagrantly  violated,  and  public  liberty 
and  private  right  trampled  under  foot.  As  for  Harper's  Ferry  and 
the  Norfolk  navy-yard,  they  rather  needed  protection  against  the  Ad- 


316  vallandigham's  speeches. 

ministration,  by  whose  orders  millions  of  property  were  wantonly 
destroyed,  which  was  not  in  the  slightest  danger  from  any  quarter,  at 
the  date  of  the  proclamation. 

But,  sir.  Congress  was  not  assembled  at  once,  as  Congress  should 
have  been,  and  the  great  question  of  civil  war  submitted  to  their  delib- 
erations. The  representatives  of  the  States  and  of  the  people  were  not 
allowed  the  slightest  voice  in  this,  the  most  momentous  question  ever 
presented  to  any  government.  The  entire  responsibility  of  the  whole 
work  was  at  once  assumed  by  the  Executive,  and  all  the  powers  required 
for  the  purposes  in  hand  were  boldly  usurped  from  either  the  States  or 
the  people,  or  from  the  legislative  department ;  while  the  voice  of  the 
judiciary,  that  last  refuge  and  hope  of  liberty,  was  turned  away  from 
with  contempt. 

Sir,  the  right  of  blockade — and  I  begin  with  it — is  a  belligerent 
right,  incident  to  a  state  of  war,  and  it  cannot  be  exercised  until  war 
has  been  declared  or  recognized ;  and  Congress  alone  can  declare  or 
recognize  war.  But  Congress  had  not  declared  or  recognized  war.  On 
the  contrary,  they  had,  but  a  little  while  before,  expressly  refused  to 
declare  it,  or  to  arm  the  President  with  the  power  to  make  it.  And 
thus  the  President,  in  declaring  a  blockade  of  certain  ports  in  the  States 
of  the  South,  and  in  applying  to  it  the  rules  governing  blockades  as 
between  independent  powers,  violated  the  Constitution. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  he  meant  to  deal  with  these  States  as  still 
in  the  Union,  and  subject  to  Federal  authority,  then  he  usurped  a  power 
which  belongs  to  Congress  alone — the  power  to  abolish  and  close  up 
ports  of  entry;  a  power,  too,  which  Congress  had,  also,  but  a  few  weeks 
before,  refused  to  exercise.  And  yet,  without  the  repeal  or  abolition 
of  ports  of  entry,  any  attempt,  by  either  Congress  or  the  President,  to 
blockade  these  ports,  is  a  violation  of  the  spirit,  if  not'  of  the  letter,  of 
that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  declares  that  "  no  preference  shall 
be  given,  by  any  regulation  of  commerce  or  revenue,  to  the  ports  of  one 
State  over  tho^e  of  another." 

Sir,  upon  this  point  I  do  not  speak  without  the  highest  authority. 
In  the  very  midst  of  the  South  Carolina  nullification  controversy,  it  was 
suggested,  that  in  the  recess  of  Congress,  and  without  a  law  to  govern 
him,  the  President,  Andrew  Jackson,  meant  to  send  down  a  fleet  to 
Charleston  and  blockade  the  port.  But  the  bare  suggestion  called  forth 
the  indignant  protest  of  Daniel  Webster,  himself  the  archenemy  of 
nullification,  and  whose  highest  honors  were  won  in  the  three  years' 
conflict  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  with  its  ablest  champions.  In  an  ad- 
dress, in  October,  1832,  at  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  to  a  National 
Republican  convention — it  was  before  the  birth,  or  christening  at  least, 
of  the  Whig  party — the  great  expounder  of  the  Constitution  said: 


EXECUTIVE    USURPATION.  317 

"We  are  told,  sir,  that  the  President  will  immediately  employ  the  military  force, 
and  at  once  blockade  Charleston.  A  military  remedy — a  remedy  by  direct  belli- ' 
.  gereiit  operation,  has  thus  been  suggested,  and  nothing  else  has  been  suggested,  as 
the  intended  means  of  preserving  the  Union.  Sir,  there  is  no  little  reason  to  think 
that  this  suggestion  is  true.  We  cannot  be  altogether  unmindful  of  the  past,  and, 
therefore,  we  cannot  be  altogether  unapprehensive  for  the  futtire.  For  one,  sir, 
I  raise  my  voice,  beforehand,  against  the  unauthorized  employment  of  military 
Jiower,  and  against  superseding  the  authority  of  the  laws,  by  an  armed  force,  under 
pretence  of  putting  down  nullification.  The  President  has  no  authority  to  blockade 
Charleston.''^ 

Jackson !  Jackson,  sir !  the  great  Jackson !  did  not  dare  to  do  it 
without  authority  of  Congress ;  but  our  Jackson  of  to-day,  the  little 
Jackson  at  the  other  end  of  the  avenue,  and  the  mimic  Jacksons  around 
him,  do  blockade,  not  only  Charleston  harbor,  but\he  whole  Southern 
coast,  three  thousand  miles  in  extent,  by  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen, 

"The  President  has  no  authority  to  employ  military  force  till  he  shall  be  duly 
required," — 

Mark  the  word : 

"  reqvired  so  to  do  by  law  and  the  civil  authorities.     His  duty  is  to  cause  the  lawa 
to  be  executed.     His  duty  is  to  support  the  civil  authority" — 

As  in  the  Merryraan  case,  forsooth ;  but  I  shall  recur  to  that  here- 
after : 

"  His  duty  is,  if  the  laws  be  resisted,  to  employ  the  military  force  of  the  country, 
if  necessary,  for  their  support  and  execution ;  hut  to  do  all  this  in  compliance  only 
with  law  and  with  decisions  of  the  tribunals.  If,  by  any  ingenious  devices,  those 
who  resist  the  laws  escape  from  the  reach  of  judicial  authority,  as  it  is  now  pro- 
vided to  be  exercised,  it  is  entirely  competent  to  Congress  to  make  such  new  pro- 
visions as  the  exigency  of  the  case  may  demand." 

Treason,  sir,  rank  treason,  all  this  to-day.  And  yet,  thirty  years 
ago,  it  was  true  Union  patriotism  and  sound  constitutional  law  !  Sir, 
I  prefer  the  wisdom  and  stern  fidelity  to  principle  of  the  fathers. 

Such  was  the  voice  of  Webster,  and  such,  too,  let  me  add,  the  voice, 
in  his  last  great  speech  in  the  Senate,  of  the  Douglas  whose  death  the 
land  now  mourns. 

Next  after  the  blockade,  sir,  in  the  catalogue  of  daring  Executive 
usurpations,  comes  the  proclamation  of  the  3d  of  May,  and  the  orders 
of  the  War  and  Navy  Departments  in  pursuance  of  it — a  proclamation 
and  usurpation  which  would  have  cost  any  English  sovereign  his  head 
at  any  time  within  the  last  two  hundred  years.  Sir,  the  Constitution 
not  only  confines  to  Congress  the  right  to  declare  war,  but  expressly 
provides  that  "  Congress  (not  the  President)  shall  have  power  to  raise 
and  support  armies ;"  and  to  "  provide  and  maintain  a  navy."     In  pur- 


318  vallandigham's  speeches. 

suance  of  this  authority,  Congress,  years  ago,  had  fixed  the  number  of 
officers  and  of  the  regiments,  of  the  different  kinds  of  service  ;  and  also, 
the  number  of  sliips,  officers,  marinos,  and  seamen  which  should  com- 
pose tlie  navy.  Not  only  that,  but  Congress  has  repeatedly,  within  the 
last  five  years,  refused  to  increase  the  regular  army.  More  than  that 
still :  in  P'ebruary  and  March  last,  the  House,  upon  several  test  votes, 
repeatedly  and  expressly  refused  to  authorize  the  President  to  accept 
the  service  of  volunteers  for  the  very  purpose  of  protecting  the  public 
property,  enforcing  the  laws,  and  collecting  the  revenue.  And  yet,  the 
President,  of  his  own  mere  will  and  authority,  and  without  the  shadow 
of  right,  has  proceeded  to  increase,  and  has  increased,  the  standing  array 
by  twenty-five  thousand  men ;  the  navy  by  eighteen  thousand ;  and 
has  called  for,  and  accepted  the  services  of,  forty  regiments  of  volun- 
teers for  three  years,  numbering  forty-two  thousand  men,  and  making 
thus  a  grand  army,  or  military  force,  raised  by  executive  proclamation 
alone,  without  the  sanction  of  Congress,  without  warrant  of  law,  and  in 
direct  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  of  his  oath  of  office,  of  eighty- 
five  thousand  soldiers  enlisted  for  three  and  five  years,  and  already  in 
the  field.  And  yet,  the  President  now  asks  us  to  support  the  army 
which  he  has  thus  raised,  to  ratify  his  usurpations  by  a  law  ex  jmst  facto, 
and  thus  to  make  ourselves  parties  to  our  own  degradation,  and  to  his 
infractions  of  the  Constitution.  Meanwhile,  however,  he  has  taken 
good  care  not  only  to  enlist  the  men,  organize  the  regiments,  and  mus- 
ter them  into  service,  but  to  provide,  in  advance,  for  a  horde  of  forlorn, 
worn-out,  and  broken-down  politicians  of  his  own  party,  by  appointing, 
either  by  himself,  or  through  the  Governors  of  the  States,  major-gener- 
als, brigadier-generals,  colonels,  lieutenant-colonels,  majors,  captains, 
lieutenants,  adjutants,  quarter-masters,  and  surgeons,  without  any  limit 
as  to  numbers,  and  without  so  much  as  once  saying  to  Congress,  "By 
your  leave,  gentlemen." 

BemiminLi:  with  this  wide  breach  of  the  Constitution,  this  enormous 
usurpation  of  the  most  dangerous  of  all  powers — the  power  of  the 
sword — other  infractions  and  assumptions  were  easy  ;  and  after  public 
liberty,  private  right  soon  fell.  The  privacy  of  the  telegi'aph  was  in- 
vaded, in  the  search  after  treason  and  traitors  ;  although  it  turns  out, 
significantly  enough,  that  the  only  victim,  so  far,  is  one  of  the  ap- 
pointees and  especial  pets  of  the  Administration.  The  telegraphic  dis- 
patches, preserved  under  every  pledge  of  secrecy,  for  the  protection 
and  safety  of  the  telegraph  companies,  were  seized  and  carried  away 
without  search-warrant,  without  probable  cause,  without  oath,  and 
without  description  of  the  places  to  be  searched,  or  of  the  things  to  be 
seized,  and  in  plain  violation  of  the  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure 
in    their   houses,   persons,  papers,   and    effects,    against   unreasonable 


EXECUTIVE   USUEPATIOI^.  319 

searches  and  seizures.  One  step  more,  sir,  will  bring  upon  us  search  and 
seizure  of  the  public  mails ;  and,  finally,  as  in  the  worst  days  of  Eng- 
lish oppression — as  in  the  times  of  the  Russclls  and  the  Sydneys,  of 
English  martyrdom — of  the  drawers  and  secretaries  of  the  private  citi- 
zen ;  though  even  then  tyrants  had  the  grace  to  look  to  the  forms  of 
the  law,  and  the  execution  was  judicial  murder,  not  military  slaughter. 
But  who  shall  say  that  the  future  Nero  of  America,  shall  have  the 
modesty  of  his  Roman  predecessor,  in  extenuation  of  whose  character 
it  is  written  by  the  great  historian,  Subtraxit  occulos,  jussitgue  scelera 
non  spcctavit. 

Sir,  the  rights  of  property  having  been  thus  wantonly  violated,  it 
needed  but  a  little  stretch  of  usurpation  to  invade  the  sanctity  of  the 
person  ;  and  a  victim  was  not  long  wanting.  A  })rivate  citizen  of 
Maryland,  not  subject  to  the  rules  and  articles  of  war — not  in  a  case 
arising  in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  nor  in  the  militia,  when  in  actual 
service — is  seized  in  his  own  house,  in  the  dead  hour  of  night,  not  by 
any  civil  officer,  nor  upon  any  civil  process,  but  by  a  band  of  armed 
soldiers,  under  the  verbal  orders  of  a  military  chief,  and  is  ruthlessly 
torn  from  his  wife  and  his  children,  and  hurried  off  to  a  fortress  of  the 
United  States — and  that  fortress,  as  if  in  mockery,  the  very  one  over 
whose  ramparts  had  floated  that  star-spangled  banner,  which  "in  the 
dawn's  early  light,"  gladdened  the  eyes  and  inspired  the  soul  of  the 
patriot  prisoner,  who  in  the  midst  of  battle,  and  upon  the  deck  of  one 
of  the  enemy's  ships,  made  it  memorable  by  the  noblest  of  American 
national  lyrics. 

And,  sir,  when  the  highest  judicial  officer  of  the  land,  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Supremo  Court,  upon  whose  shoulders  "when  the  judi- 
cial ermine  fell,  it  touched  nothing  less  spotless  than  itself,"  the  aged, 
the  venerable,  the  gentle,  and  pure-minded  Taney,  who,  but  a  little 
while  before,  had  administered  to  the  President  the  oath  to  support  the 
Constitution,  and  to  execute  the  laws,  issued,  as  by  law  it  was  his  sworn 
duty  to  issue,  the  high  prerogative  writ  of  habeas  corpus — that  great 
writ  of  right,  that  main  bulwark  of  personal  liberty,  commanding  the 
body  of  the  accused  to  be  brought  before  him,  that  justice  and  right 
might  be  done  by  due  course  of  law,  and  without  denial  or  delay,  the 
gates  of  the  fortress,  its  cannon  turned  towards,  and  in  plain  sight  of 
the  city,  where  the  court  sat,  and  frowning  from  the  ramparts,  were 
closed  against  the  officer  of  the  law,  and  the  answer  returned  that  the 
officer  in  command  had,  by  the  authority  of  the  President,  suspended 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  And  thus  it  is,  sir,  that  the  accused  has 
ever  since  been  held  a  prisoner  without  due  process  of  law ;  without 
bail ;  without  presentment  by  a  grand  jury  ;  without  speedy,  or  public 
trial  by  a  petit  jury,  of  his  own  State   or  district,  or  any  trial  at  all ; 


320  valla:n'digiiam's  spekches. 

without  information  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusation  ;  without 
being  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  hira ;  without  compulsory 
process  to  obtain  witnesses  in  his  favor;  and  without  the  assistance  of 
counsel  for  his  defence.  And  this  is  our  boasted  American  liberty? 
And  thus  it  is,  too,  sir,  that  here,  here,  in  America,  in  the  seventy- 
third  year  of  the  Republic,  that  great  writ  and  security  of  personal 
freedom,  which  it  cost  the  patriots  and  freemen  of  England  six  hun- 
dred years  of  labor  and  toil,  and  blood  to  extort  and  to  hold  fast  from 
venal  judges  and  tyrant  kings;  written  in  the  great  charter  at  Runny- 
mede,  by  the  iron  barons,  who  made  the  simple  Latin  and  unconth 
words  of  the  times,  nullus  liber  homo,  in  the  language  of  Chatham, 
worth  all  the  classics ;  recovered  and  confirmed  a  hundred  times  after- 
wards, as  often  as  violated  and  stolen  away,  and  finally,  and  firmly  se- 
cured at  last  bv  the  o-reat  act  of  Charles  TL,  and  transferred  thence  to 
our  own  Constitution  and  laws,  has  been  wantonly  and  ruthlessly  tram- 
pled in  the  dust.  Ay,  sir,  that  great  writ,  bearing,  by  special  com- 
mand of  Parliament,  those  other  uncouth,  but  magic  words,  per  statu 
turn  tricessimo  primo  Caroli  aecundi  regis,  which  no  English  judge,  no 
English  minister,  no  king  or  queen  of  England,  dare  disobey  ;  that 
writ,  brought  over  by  our  fathers,  and  cherished  by  them,  as  a  priceless 
inheritance  of  liberty,  an  American  President  has  contemptuously  set 
at  defiance.  Xay,  more,  he  has  ordered  his  subordinate  military  chiefs 
to  suspend  it  at  their  discretion !  And,  yet,  after  all  this,  he  coolly 
comes  before  this  House  and  the  Senate,  and  the  country,  and  pleads 
that  he  is  only  preserving  and  protecting  the  Constitution ;  and  de- 
mands and  expects  of  this  House  and  of  the  Senate,  and  the  country, 
their  thanks  for  his  usurpations ;  while,  outside  of  this  capitol,  his 
myrmidons  are  clamoring  for  impeachment  of  the  Chief  Justice,  aa 
engaged  in  a  conspiracy  to  break  down  the  Federal  Government. 

Sir,  however  much  necessity — the  tyrant's  plea — may  be  urged  in 
extenuation  of  the  usurpations  and  infractions  of  the  President  in  regard 
to  public  liberty,  there  can  be  no  such  apology  or  defence  for  his  inva- 
sions of  private  right.  What  overruling  necessity  required  the  violation 
of  the  sanctity  of  jfrivate  property  and  private  confidence  ]  What  great 
public  danger  demanded  the  arrest  and  imprisonment,  without  trial  by 
common  law,  of  one  single  private  citizen,  for  an  act  done  weeks  before^ 
openly,  and  by  authority  of  his  State  ?  If  guilty  of  treason,  was  not  the 
judicial  power  ample  enough  and  strong  enough  for  his  conviction  and 
punishment  ?  What,  then,  was  needed  in  his  case,  but  the  precedent 
under  which  other  men,  in  other  places,  might  become  the  victims  of 
executive  suspicion  and  displeasure  ? 

As  to  the  pretence,  sir,  that  the  President  has  the  Constitutional 
right  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  I  will  not  waste  time  in  ar- 


EXECUTIVE   USUEPATIOI^.  321 

guino-  it.  The  case  is  as  plain  as  words  can  make  it.  Tt  is  a  leojislative 
power;  it  is  found  only  in  the  legislative  article  ;  it  belongs  to  Congress 
only  to  do  it.  Subo^'dinate  officers  have  disobeyed  it :  General  Wilkin- 
son disobeyed  it,  Bpt  he  sent  his  prisoners  on  far  judicial  trial ;  General 
Jackson  disobeved  it,  and  was  reprimanded  by  James  Madi-on  ;  but  no 
President,  nobody  but  Congress,  ever  before  assumed  the  riglit  to  sus- 
pend it.  And,  sir,  that  other  pretence  of  necessity,  I  repeat,  cannot 
be  allowed.  It  had  no  existence  in  fact.  The  Constitution  cannot  be 
preserved  bv  violating  it.  It  is  an  offence  to  the  intelligence  of  this 
House,  and  of  the  country,  to  pretend  that  all  this,  and  the  other  gross 
and  multiplied  infractions  of  the  Constitution  and  usurpations  of  power 
were  done  by  the  President  and  his  advisers  out  of  pure  love  alid  devo- 
tion to  the  Constitution.  But  if  so,  sir,  then  they  have  but  one  step 
further  to  take,  and  declare,  in  the  language  of  Sir  Boyle  Roche,  in  the 
Irish  House  of  Commons,  that  such  is  the  depth  of  their  attachment  to 
it,  that  they  are  prepared  to  give  np,  not  merely  a  part,  but  the  whole 
of  the  Constitution,  to  preserve  the  remainder.  And  yet,  if  indeed  this 
pretext  of  necessity  be  well  founded,  then  let  me  say,  that  a  cause 
which  demands  the  sacrifice  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  dearest  se- 
curities of  property,  liberty,  and  life,  cannot  be  just;  certainly  it  is  not 
worth  the  sacrifice. 

Sir,  I  am  obliged  to  pass  by,  for  want  of  time,  other  grave  and  dan- 
gerous infractions  and  usurpations  of  the  President  since  the  4th  of 
March.  I  only  allude  casually  to  the  quartering  of  soldiers  in  private 
houses  without  the  consent  of  the  owners,  and  without  any  manner 
having  been  prescribed  by  law  ;  to  the  subversion  in  a  part,  at  least,  of 
Maryland  of  her  own  State  Government  and  of  the  authorities  under 
it ;  to  the  censorship  over  the  telegraph,  and  the  infringement,  repeated- 
ly, in  one  or  more  of  the  States,  of  the  right  of  the  people  to  kerp  and 
to  bear  arms  for  their  defence.  But  if  all  these  things,  I  ask,  have  been 
done  in  the  first  two  months  after  the  commencement  of  this  war,  and 
by  men  not  military  chieftains,  and  unused  to  arbitrary  power,  what 
may  we  not  expect  to  see  in  three  years,  and  bv  the  successful  heroes  of 
the  fight?  Sir,  the  power  and  rights  of  the  States  and  the  people,  and 
of  their  Representatives,  have  been  usurped  ;  the  sanctity  of  the  private 
house  and  of  private  property  has  been  invaded ;  and  the  liberty  of  the 
person  wantonly  and  wickedly  stricken  down  ;  free  speech,  too,  has 
been  repeatedly  denied  ;  and  all  this  under  the  plea  of  necessity.  Sir, 
the  right  of  petition  will  follow  next — nay,  it  has  already  been  shaken  ; 
the  freedom  of  the  press  will  soon  fall  after  it ;  and  let  me  whisper  in 
your  ear,  that  there  will  be  few  to  mourn  over  its  loss,  unless,  indeed, 
its  ancient  high  and  honorable  character  shall  be  rescued  and  redeemed 
from  its  present  reckless  mendacity  and  degradation.  Freedom  of  reli- 
21 


322  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

t 

gion  will  yield  too,  at  last,  amid  the  exultant  shouts  of  milHoTiP,  who 
have  seen  its  holy  temples  defiled,  and  its  white  robes  of  a  former  iimo- 
ceucy  trampled  now  under  the  polluting  hoofs  of  aiyimbitious  and  faith- 
less or  fanatical  clergy.  Meantime  nati-^nal  banWi,  bankrupt  laws,  a 
vast  and  permanent  public  debt,  high  tariffs,  heavy  direct  taxation,  enor- 
mous expenditure,  gigantic  and  stupendous  peculation,  anarchy  first, 
and  a  strong  government  afterwards — no  more  State  lines,  no  more 
State  governments,  but  a  consolidated  monarchy  or  vast  centralized  mil- 
itary despotism  must  all  follow  in  the  history  of  the  future,  as  in  the 
history  of  the  past  they  have,  centuries  ago,  been  written.  Sir,  I  have 
said  nothing,  and  have  time  to  say  nothing  now,  of  the  immense  indebt- 
edness and  the  vast  expenditures  which  have  already  accrued,  nor  of  the 
folly  and  mismanagement  of  the  war  so  far,  nor  of  the  atrocious  and 
shameless  peculations  and  frauds  which  have  disgraced  it  in  the  Stale 
governments  and  the  Federal  Government  from  the  beginning.  The 
avenging  hour  for  all  these  will  come  hereafter,  and  I  pass  them  by  now. 

I  have  finished  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  what  I  proposed  to  say  at  this 
time  upon  the  message  of  the  President.  As  to  my  own  position  in 
regard  to  this  most  unhappy  civil  war,  I  have  only  to  say  that  I  stand 
to-day  just  where  I  stood  upon  the  4tli  of  March  last ;  where  the  whole 
Democratic  party,  and  the  whole  Constitutional  Union  party,  and  a  vast 
majority,  as  I  believe,  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  stood  too.  I 
am  for  peace,  speedy,  immediate,  honorable  peace,  with  all  its  blessings. 
Others  may  have  changed — I  have  not.  I  question  not  their  motives 
nor  quarrel  with  their  course.  It  is  vain  and  futile  for  tlum  to  question 
or  to  quarrel  with  mine.  My  duty  shall  be  discharged — calmly,  firmly, 
quietly,  and  regardless  of  consequences.  The  approving  voice  of  a 
conscience  void  of  offence,  and  the  approving  judgment  which  shall  fol- 
low "  after  some  time  be  past,"  these,  God  help  me,  are  my  trust  and 
my  support. 

Sir,  I  have  spoken  freely  and  fearlessly  to-day,  as  became  an  American 
Representative  and  an  American  (.'itizen  ;  one  firmly  resolved,  come  what 
may,  not  to  lose  his  own  Constitutional  liberties,  nor  to  surrender  his 
own  Constitutional  rights  in  the  vain  effort  to  impose  these  rights  and 
liberties  upon  ten  millions  of  unwilling  people.  I  have  spoken  earnestly, 
too,  but  yet  not  as  one  unmindful  of  the  solemnity  of  the  scenes  which 
surround  us  upon  every  side  to-day.  Sir,  when  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  assembled  here  on  the  3d  of  December,  1860,  just  seven 
months  ago,  the  Senate  was  composed  of  sixty-six  Senators,  represent- 
ing the  thirty-three  States  of  the  Union,  and  this  House  of  two  hundred 
and  thirty -seven  members — every  State  being  present.  It  was  a  grand 
and  solemn  spectacle — the  ambassadors  of  three-and-thirty  sovereign- 
ties and  thirty-one  millions  of  people,  the  mightiest  republic  on  earth, 


EXECUTIVE   USUEPATIOTT.  323 

in  jreneral  Consrrcss  assembled.  In  the  Senate,  too,  and  this  House, 
were  some  of  the  ablest  and  most  distinguished  statesmen  of  the  country  ; 
men  whose  names  were  familiar  to  the  whole  country  —  some  of  them 
destined  to  pass  into  history.  The  new  wings  of  the  capitol  had  then 
but  just  recently  been  finished,  in  all  their  gorgeous  magnificence,  and, 
except  a  hundred  marines  at  the  navy-yard,  not  a  soldier  was  within 
forty  miles  of  Washington. 

Sir,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  meets  here  again  to-day ;  but 
how  changed  the  scene !  Instead  of  thirty-four  States,  twent3'-three 
only,  one  less  than  the  number  forty  years  ago,  are  here,  or  in  the  other 
wing  of  the  capitol.  Forty-six  Senators  and  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  Representatives  constitute  the  Congress  of  the  now  United  States. 
And  of  these,  eight  Senators  and  twenty-four  Representatives,  from  four 
States  only,  linger  here  yet  as  deputies  from  that  great  South  which, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  Government,  contributed  so  much  to  mould 
its  policy,  to  build  up  its  greatness,  and  to  control  its  destinies.  All 
the  other  States  of  that  South  are  gone.  Twenty-two  Senators  and 
sixty -five  Representatives  no  longer  answer  to  their  names.  The  vacant 
seats  are,  indeed,  still  here ;  and  the  escutcheons  of  their  respective 
States  look  down  now  solemnly  and  sadly  from  these  vaulted  ceilings.  But 
the  Virginia  of  Washington  and  Henry  and  Madison,  of  Marshall  and 
Jefferson,  of  Randolph  and  Monroe,  the  birth-place  of  Clay,  the  mother 
of  States  and  of  Presidents  ;  the  Carolinas  of  Pinckney  and  Sumter  and 
Marion,  of  Calhoun  and  Macon ;  and  Tennessee,  the  home  and  burial- 
place  of  Jackson  ;  and  other  States,  too,  once  most  loyal  and  true,  are 
no  longer  here.  The  voices  and  footsteps  of  the  great  dead  of  the  past 
two  ages  of  the  Republic  linger  still,  it  maybe  in  echo,  along  the  stately 
corridors  of  this  capitol ;  but  their  descendants,  from  nearly  one  half  of 
the  States  of  the  Republic,  will  meet  with  us  no  more  within  these  marble 
halls.  But  in  the  parks  and  lawns,  and  upon  the  broad  avenues  of 
this  spacious  city,  seventy  thousand  soldiers  have  supplied  their  places; 
and  the  morning  druno-beat  from  a  score  of  encampments,  within  sight 
of  this  beleaguered  capitol,  gives  melancholy  warning  to  the  Represent- 
atives of  the   States  and  of  the    people,    that   amid  arms  laws  are 

SILENT. 

Sir,  some  years  hence — I  would  fain  hope  some  months  hence,  if  I 
dai^ — the  present  generation  will  demand  to  know  the  cause  of  all 
this;  and,  some  ages  hereafter,  the  grand  and  impartial  tribunal  of 
history  will  make  solemn  and  diligent  inquest  of  the  authors  of  this 
terrible  revolution. 

addendum. 
In  reply  to  a  question  by  Mr.  Uolman,  of  Indiana,'  in  regard  to  sup- 


9Q<|. 


T-AXILJLSaiOffilAJrS   SFSSCHSSk 


t'TiC  SDr.  T'^;LL.'t.Nz;r'.tS^j  said  ie  wcmJi  answer  in 
ussuioliun.  viiicii  ke  had.  piwpareti  aui  pr»- 


a  parr  i^  TXtn 


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7  .-:i  in.  33  vi^^H-  . 


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'BSSASSS. 
Oar  H3  i^HpaHmaEff  in   ^igyuLsr  CaaciinBffinrawra  to 

in  ^  Mmtm  af  ^'jarmaea^esxiss.  J'aia  12,  L9S1L 
T=r?    -^  -^ny  Jim  "b^^  smiEar  eHBsuiesaiticHL,    ffi^  Ti 

'tai  sail  ant  SBf  nmas  f  -^  lima^  ane  anobinr  in  ibe  srricE.  h&  ^^;i.l 

j^ymat  3£?(«si  '-Avtnnmusi..Tw^r^,  -whosti  wosmsa  ^xtSi  1>e  to  aectMii^Hn^  uie 

jJ^iDHV  on  ilB  inM"]i   1o  iffisras^  —  "  -  -  -  . ^   —^pofflEi'^"^    "      • — 

tnniE  ^  anbm:::.  ^   ::    ^  ._. :.    ..-"^  ijf  tsiti*   .  -    ._  ^  . 

and  xiie  namurt  <sf  sid.  StA£^  <■*  an^  (me  (»f  t&esu  tu  liie 
^Twiraa^  aa3  ia  <AxeSasais&  to  l&e  F'cideaai  GitaBSMmtfim  ami  antuiOEiCF.'^ 
]Sc.  T".  ^0^  m  ggqqwat  (sf  i&e  anraidment  as  fidows  : 


■TTitin      Ti  ^-1  -Hn    ^  ^p*    Trf    tikp  TT    ;" 

...  ji  TiifciifHtMirt^^  and 


""  ^ — bat  ai~ 


-r.3.  fitnr 


-  wiiii  liisie  ^^'«»  tiiuuL  oaie  ^nndiisd 

::    -.us  in  T>ow*ar  anii  i^M>aiu:e^  was  in 

a  ITTiiiBd  3taCau  taie  Ptts- 

ou   a<Ti"^wniiWHiy  tbe  Ajanip^  upon  a 


Jtonsr  .^A  ^35f  mjaria. 


^a^3aff  "laer  an^anx. . 


Jjr". 


-aae=^ 


iiriniirTr~  5*i:  eIIb  jissrssc . 


nfTMffg  "38  "ae 


326  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 


THE   TARIFP— TEA,    COFFEE,  AND    SUGAR. 
Remavks  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  December  23,  1861. 

Mr.  Speaker: — I  desire  to  say  that,  at  the  last  session,  T  opposed, 
in  common  with  all  the  gentlemen  upon  this  side  of  the  House,  the 
tarifi'  and  tax  bill  ;  and  in  some  brief  remarks  then  submitted,  I  pre- 
dicted that  the  result  of  increasing  the  duties  would  be  a  great  and  dis- 
astrous diminution  of  the  importations,  and  by  consequence  of  the 
revenue  from  customs. 

We  have  before  us  now  the  annual  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  four  months  later,  admitting  that  his  estimate  of  receipts 
from  duties  on  articles  imported,  or  to  be  imported,  during  the  current 
fiscal  year,  must  already  be  reduced  by  $25,000,000.  Such  has  been 
the  effect  of  the  "Morrill  tariff"  of  1861,  and  the  act  of  August, 
amending  it.  Yet,  instead  of  pursuing  a  course  of  policy  which  every 
principle  of  political  economy  demands,  and  promoting  an  increase  of 
the  revenues  by  reducing  duties  and  encouraging  importations,  we  are 
about  still  further  to  diminish  the  revenues  by  increasing  the  duty  to 
such  an  extent  as  will,  in  a  little  while,  amount  to  prohibition.  Why, 
sir,  in  portions  of  the  Northwest  it  ah-eady  requires  four  bushels  of 
corn  to  buy  one  pound  of  coffee.  Corn,  in  Illinois  is  selling  at  seven 
cents  a  bushel,  and  in  some  places  has  been  used  as  fuel,  instead  of 
wood,  because  it  is  now  cheaper.  Yet  gentlemen  of  the  Eastern  States 
are  continually  applying  the  same  Sangradian  panacea,  holding  fast  to 
the  absurd  notion  that  an  increase  of  duty  will  always  and  inevitably 
be  followed  by  a  corresponding  increase  of  revenue.  They  still  insist, 
whenever  the  receipts  run  low,  on  adding  to  the  tariff  of  duties,  with- 
out rememberino-  that  the  natural  effect  of  the  increase,  even  in  ordinary 
times,  is  to  diminish'  importations,  and  that  now,  especially,  the  loss  of 
the  cotton  export,  amounting  last  year  to  $191,000,000,  or,  deducting 
the  precious  metals,  to  nearly  two-thirds  of  our  entire  expoitation,  and 
the  depressing  influence  every  way  of  the  present  crisis,  have  already 
cut  down  the  importations  to  nearly  one-half,  as  compared  with  the 
last  five  or  six  years.  In  the  port  of  New  York  alone  the  falling  off 
amounts  to  about  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  How,  I  beg  to 
know,  are  you  to  have  revenue  from  imports  when  nothing  is  imported? 
Ex  nihilo  nihil  jit. 

But  not  so  think  the  wise  men  of  the  East.  The  more  you  fetter  com- 
merce the  more  they  believe  it  will  flourish.  The  higher  you  make  the 
duties  the  more  will  revenue  flow  into  your  Treasury.  Do  gentlemen 
forget  that  customs  duty  is  a  voluntary  tax,  and  that  beyond  a  certain 
point  no  one  will  tax  himself  of  his  own  free  will  ?     When  times  arc 


THE    TARIFF. TEA,  COFFEE,  AND    SUGAR.  327 

prosperous  and  money  plenty,  and  trade  and  commerce  are  brisk,  men 
will  buy  much,  though  the  price  be  raised.  But  in  times  of  depression, 
when  wages  are  low,  money  scarce,  and  employment  difficult  to  be  had 
— in  just  such  times,  in  short,  as  are  now  upon  us — merchants  will  not 
import  because  consumers  will  not  purchase  if  llie  price  be  high. 
The  true  policy,  therefore,  clearly  is  to  lower  the  impost  and  encourage 
importation,  and  not  to  add  to  all  the  other  causes  which  now  combine 
to  destroy  this  main  source  of  revenue,  the  killing  eft'ect  of  increased 
duties.  This  is  quackery,  not  statesmanship ;  and  I  predict  to-day 
that  your  high  tariffs  will  not  realize  for  the  current  year  even  the 
revised  and  amended  estimate  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

Now,  sir,  I  submit  the  question  without  going  into  the  argument 
further,  that  at  the  least,  this  bill  should  be  postponed  until  the  entire 
tariff'  system  can  be  digested  and  accommodated  to  the  changed  condi- 
tion of  the  country  ;  until  it  can  be  made  literally  and  strictly  a  renenue 
tariff — a  war  tariff",  if  you  please.  As  it  now  stands,  it  is  an  incon- 
gruous amalgam  of  three  separate  acts  and  two  or  three  different 
systems  of  duties — the  ad  valorem,  the  specific,  and  a  compound  of 
the  two.  I  think,  sir,  that  the  bill  should  certainly  go  over  for  two  or 
three  weeks,  until  the  whole  subject  can  be  arranged,  collated  and  har- 
monized. This  can  be  done  without  the  sliohtest  loss  to  the  revenue. 
How  much,  sir,  does  the  gentleman  from  Vermont  expect  to  realize 
within  the  next  three  weeks  from  the  passage  of  this  act  ?  Will  there 
be  an  extraordinary  importation  of  tea  from  China  and  Japan  within 
that  time  ?  Will  there  be  any  such  of  coffee  and  sugar  ?  What  is  in 
the  wind  ?  As  to  the  latter  article  of  sugar,  let  me  say  further,  that  the 
West  has  heretofore  received  its  sugars  mostly  from  the  lower  States 
on  the  Mississippi ;  but  an  embargo  has  been  laid  on  the  trade  of  that 
river  ever  since  April  or  May  last.  You  have  shut  up,  blockaded,  the 
Mississippi  for  us ;  and  more  effectually,  too,  than  any  port  on  the 
southern  coast.  Since  that  time  our  suirars  have  been  received  from 
the  East,  and  the  price  has  of  course  been  very  greatly  enhanced.  In 
addition  to  thus  cutting  us  off"  from  our  market,  you  increased  the 
duties  upon  sugars  at  the  late»session  ;  and  now  you  propose,  in  hot 
haste,  to  raise  that  duty  still  higher,  ayd  thus  to  place  the  article 
wholly  beyond  the  reach  of  most  of  those  in  the  West  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  regard  it  as  a  necessary  of  life ;  and  I  believe,  sir,  that  it  is 
consumed  perhaps  to  a  larger  extent  there  than  in  the  Stales  of  the 
East. 

It  seems  to  me,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  some  other  surer  and  wiser  mode 
ought  to  be  devised  for  increasing  the  waning  revL'Uues  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. Your  expenditures  are  $500,000,000;  your  income  but 
$50,000,000,  enough  to  last  just  one  month.     If  the  Constitution  did 


328 


VALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECIIES. 


not  forbid  a  tax  upon  exports,  something  might,  in  that  way.  be  added, 
because  there  has  been  a  very  large  increase  of  exportation-  witiiiu  the 
last  six  months.  But  even  in  that  case,  I  have  not  the  sligi  test  doubl 
you  would,  upon  each  recurring  pressure,  raise  the  duties,  to.'  and  thus 
break  down  your  exports,  as  you  have  ah'eady  your  iuiport.-,  hy  the 
same  folly.  True,  the  country  is  benefited  to  a  large  extent,  doubtless 
by  this  lieavy  exportation,  and  the  West  receives  a  share  of  that  bene- 
fit. But  let  it  be  remembered  that  this  increased  exportation  from  the 
West  through  the  seaports  of  the  East,  arises  from  the  fact  that  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi  has  been  closed  to  us,  and  thus  the  pro- 
ducts which  heretofore  we  were  accustomed  to  carry  down  that  river 
have  been  forced  to  find  a  market  in  foreign  countries.  Cut  oft"  as  we 
are  from  all  other  means  of  outlet  except  by  way  of  the  lakes,  and 
thus,  in  part,  through  a  foreign  country,  and  with  our  railroads  leading 
to  tire  East,  for  the  most  part  in  the  hands  of  Eastern  directors  or 
bondholders,  the  taiiff  of  freights  has  at  the  same  time  been  fully 
doubled,  thus  increasing  the  burdens  upon  our  trade  both  ways,  so  largely 
as  to  amount  in  a  little  while  longer  to  absolute  prohibition ;  while,  to 
make  the  matter  still  worse,  that  great  and  natural  channel  of  railroad 
communication,  also,  from  the  southern  portions  of  the  Northwest  east- 
ward, the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad,  has  been  closed  for  all  purposes 
of  travel  and  transportation  for  the  last  six  months,  and  it  seems  almost 
impossible  for  some  cause — surely  not  "  military  necessity,"  but  shall  I 
say  base  selfishness  on  the  part  of  more  northern  and  eastern  or  rival 
roads  ? — to  procure  the  opening  of  it  upon  any  terms. 

Sir,  I  have  spoken  so  far  solely  for  the  purpose  of  directing  the 
attention  of  the  House  and  the  country  to  this  subject,  and  not  with 
any  vain  notion  of  being  hearkened  to  now  or  here.  The  bill  will  pass 
forthwith,  and  just  as  you  received  it  from  the  Treasury  Department. 
It  has  been  impossible  to  obtain  even  from  this  side  of  the  House,  the 
poor  privilege  of  the  yeas  and  nays  upon  the  question  of  suspending 
the  rules  to  allow  it  to  be  reported ;  and  it  is  vain  to  ofier  opposition 
to  the  measure.  Let  it  pass.  But  I  am  resolved  that  the  record  shall 
be  made  up  for  the  Great  Hereafter,  and  that  the  responsibility  for 
this  and  other  kindred  measunes  shall  be  fixed  just  where  it  belongs. 


CHAEGE3    OF   DISLOYALTY   EEPELLED.  329 


,  CHARGES  OP  DISLOYALTY:  1862* 

Mr.  Speaker  :  I  was  just  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  call  the  at- 
tention of  the  House  to  that  statement  myself,  having  received  it  from 
some  unknown  source  a  moment  ago.  I  do  not  know,  of  course,  what 
the  motive  just  now  of  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  may  be,  ti6t 
do  I  care.  My  purpose  then  was  just  what  it  is  now,  to  give  a  plain, 
direct,  emphatic  contradiction — a  flat  denial  to  the  infamous  statement 
and  insinuation  contained  in  the  newspaper  paragraph  just  read,  I 
never  wrote  a  letter  or  a  line  upon  political  subjects,  least  uf  all,  on  the 
question  of  secession,  to  the  Baltimore  South,  or  to  any  other  paper, 
or  to  any  man  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  since  this  revolt  be- 
gan— never  ;  and  I  defy  the  production  of  it.  The  charge  is  false,  in- 
famous, scandalous ;  and,  it  is  beyond  endurance,  too,  that  a  man's 
reputation  shall  be  at  the  mercy  of  every  scavenger  employed  to  visit 
the  haunts  of  vice  in  a  great  city,  a  mere  local  editor  of  an  irrespon- 
sible newspaper,  who  may  choose  to  parade  before  the  country  false 
and  malicious  libels  like  this.  I  avail  myself  of  this  opportunity,  to 
say  that  I  enter  into  no  defence,  and  shall  enter'  into  none,  until  some 
letter  shall  be  produced  here  which  I  have  written,  or  authorized  to  be 
written,  referring  to  "  bleeding  Dixie,"  or  making  any  suggestion  "  how 
the  Yankees  might  be  defeated."     If  any  such  are  in  existence,  I  pro- 

*  During  the  Thirty-Seventh  Congress  there  was  a  strong  outside  pressure 
against  Mr.  Vahandigham,  and,  on  the  part  of  many  members  of  tl^at  body,  a 
great  willingness  to  yield  to  the  pressure.  And  yet  no  successful  attempt  to  im- 
peach, or  even  to  cast  reproach  upon  his  loyalty,  has  ever  been  made.  The  efforts 
in  that  direction,  made  seven  times  in  Congress,  were  only  a  reproach  to  the  par- 
ties by  whom  they  were  made. 

On  the  7th  of  January,  1862,  Mr.  Yallandigham,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Hutchins,  of 
Ohio,  said:' 

"To-day  the  magnitude  and  true  character  of  the  war  stand  confessed,  and  its 
real  purposes  begin  to  be  revealed  ;  and  I  am  justified,  or  soon  will  be  justified 
by  thousands,  wlio,  a  little  while  ago,  condemned  me.  But  I  appealed,  in  the  be- 
ginning, as  I  appeal  now,  alike  to  the  near  and  the  distant  future ;  and  by  the 
judgment  of  that  impartial  tribunal,  even  in  the  present  generation,  I  will  abide  , 
or,  if  my  name  and  memory,  shall  fade  away  out  of  the  record  of  these  times. 
then  will  these  calumnies  perish  with  them." 

But,  of  these  attacks,  the  most  important  and  serious  was  that  made  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  the  19th  of  February,  1862,  by  Mr.  Hickman,  of 
Pennsylvania,  who  offered  a  resolution,  "  instructing  the  Committee  on  the  Judi- 
ciary to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  certain  charges  of  disloyalty,  made  in  the  local 
columns  of  a  Baltimore  newspaper,  against  C.  L.  Yallandigham,  of  Ohio." 

Mr.  VaUandigham  spoke  in  reply,  as  above. 


330  VAIL ANDIG ham's    SPEECHES. 

noiince  them,  here  and  now,  utter  and  impudent  forgeries.  I  have 
said  that  I  enter  upon  no  defence.  I  deny  that  it  is  the  duty  or  the 
right  £)f  any  member  to  rise  hefe,  and  call  for  investiixation  founded 
upon  statements  like  this ;  and  I  only  regret  that  I  did  not  have  the 
opportunity  to  denounce  this  report  before  the  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  the  Judiciary  rose,  and,  in  this  formal  manner,  called  the  at- 
tention of  the  House  to  it — himself  the  accuser  and  the  judge.  Sir,  t 
have  for  five  yeai-s  been  a  member  of  this  House,  and  I  never  rose  to  a 
personal  explanation  but  once,  and  that  to  correct  a  report  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  House.  I  have  always  considered  such  mere  personal 
explanations  and  controversies  with  the  press,  as  unbecoming  the  dig- 
nity of  the  House. 

Nevertheless,  I  did  intend  to  make  this  the  first  exception  in  my 
congressional  career,  and  to  say — and  I  wish  my  words  reported,  not 
only  at  the  desk  here  officially,  but  in  the  gallery— that  I  denounce, 
in  advance,  this  foul  and  infiimous  statement,  that  I  have  been  in  trea- 
sonable, or  even  suspicious  correspondence  with  any  »ne  in  that  State 
— loyal  though  it  is  to  the  Union — or  in  any  other  State,  or  have  ever 
uttered  one  sentiment  inconsistent  with  my  duty,  not  only  as  a  mem- 
ber of  this  House,  but  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States — one  who  has 
taken  a  solemn  oath  to  support  the  Constitution,  and  who,  thank  God,  has 
never  tainted  that  oath  in  thought,  or  word,  or  deed.  I  have  had  the 
right,  and  have  exercised  it,  and  as  God  liveth,  and  my  soul  liveth,  and 
as  He  is  my  judge,  I  will  exercise  it  still  in  this  House,  and  out  of  it, 
of  vindicating  the  rights  of  the  American  citizen  ;  and  beyond  that  I 
have  never  gone.  My  sentiments  will  be  found  in  the  records  of  the 
House,  except  as  I  have  made  them  public  otherwise,  and  they  will  be 
found  nowhere  else.  There,  sir,  is  their  sole  repository.  And  foresee- 
ing, more  than  a  year  ago,  but  especially  in  the  early  part  of  December, 
1860,  the  magnitude  and  true  character  of  the  revolution  or  rebellion 
into  which  this  country  was  about  to  be  plunged,  1  then  resolved  not 
to  write,  although  your  own  mails  still  carried  the  letters,  nor  have  I 
written,  one  solitary  syllable  or  line — as  to  the  Gulf  States,  months 
even  before  secession  begran  —  to  anv  one  residingf  in  a  seceded  State. 
And  yet,  the  gentleman  avails  himself  now  of  this  paragraph,  to  give 
dignity  and  importance  to  charges  of  the  falsest  and  most  infamous 
character.  Had  the  letter  been  produced  ;  had  the  charge  come  in 
any  tangible  or  authentic  shape  ;  had  any  editor  of  any  respectable 
newspaper,  even,  indorsed  the  accusation,  and  made  it  specific,  there 
might  have  been  some  apology  ;  but  the  gentleman  knows  well  that 
this  base  insinuation  was  placed  in  the  local  columns  of  a  vile  news- 
paper, put  there  by  some  person  who  had  never  seen  any  such  letter. 


CHARGES    OF   DISLOTALTY    EEPELLED.  331 

Sir,  I  meet  this   first  specific   cliarge  of  disloyalty,  made   responsibly 
here — I  meet  it  at  the  very  threshold,  as  becomes  a  man  and  a  Repre- 
sentative— by  an  emphatic  but  contemptuous  denial.     This  is  due  to 
^he  House  ;  it  is  due  to  myself. 

^T.  Richardson.  I  hope  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  "will 
allow  me  to  make  a  single  remark. 

Mr.  Hickman.     Certainly. 

Mr.  Richardson.  Mr,  Speaker :  I  want  to  hear  nothing  about 
disloyalty  on  this  side  of  the  House  while  there  is  a  class  of  mem- 
bers here  upon  the  other  side  of  the  House  who  have  declared  that 
they  will  vote  for  no  proposition  to  carry  on  the  War,  unless  it  is 
prosecuted  in  a  particular  line,  and  for  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
They  would  subvert  the  Constitution  and  the  Government,  and  I 
denounce  them  as  traitors,  and  they  ought  to  be  brought  to  trial, 
condemnation,  and  execution. 

Mr.  Hickman.  Mr.  Speaker:  The  motives  which  actuated  me  in 
introducing  the  resohijion  in  question  ought  not  to  be  doubted.  The 
severe  charge  contained  in  the  article  in  question  is  made  against  the 
gentleman  from  Ohio,  a  member  of  this  House.  Even  a  suspicion, 
a  mere  suspicion,  would  justify  such  an  investigation  as  this  resolution 
contemplates.  But  the  gentleman  from  Ohio,  as  well  as  other  mem- 
bers upon  this  floor,  knows  that  the  suspicious  which  have  existed- 
against  him — I  do  not  say  whether  justly  or  unjustly — have  been 
numerous,  and  in  circulation  for  a  long  time  past.  It  is  the  duty  of 
this  House  to  purge  itself  of  unworthy  members.  I  do  not  assert 
whether  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  occupies,  properly  or  improperly, 
his  seat  upon  this  floor.  By  offering  this  resolution  I  do  not  prejudge 
him.  If  he  were  the  most  intimate  friend  I  had  on  earth,  accused  as 
the  gentleman  from  Ohio  is  in  the  paragraph  in  question,  I  should 
deem  it  my  solemn  duty  to  urge  the  investigation  which  is  here  sug- 
gested. But,  sir,  this  charge  does  not  come  in  a  very  questionable 
shape.  It  appears  as  an  original  article  in  the  Baltimore  Clipper,  and 
is,  therefore,  presumed  to  be  editorial,  or  at  least  under  the  supervision 
of  the  editor.  It,  to  all  appearances,  emanates  from  a  responsible 
source. 

But,  sir,  I  suggest  further,  that  the  suppression  of  the  newspaper 
in  question,  the  Baltimore  South,  and  the  seizure  of  its  office  of  pub- 
lication, was  made  under  the  direct  authority  of  the  Government,  and 
it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  effects  of  the  oflace  are,  at  this  time,  in 
the  custodv  of  the  Government,  or  of  the  ao^ents  of  the  Government, 
and,  therefore,  the  information  communicated  in  this  paper  must  have 
come  through  the  Government,  or  the  ao-ents  of  the  Government.     It 


332  vallandigham's  speeches. 

is  responsible  in  its  origin,  as  far  as  we  can  jiulge.  Now,  sir,  I  refer 
the  gentli'inan  from  Ohio,  as  my  answer  to  the  suggestion  that  I  was 
not  jiis'.i.ied  in  offering  this  rosohition  under  the  cireumstarices,  to 
{)age  69  of  the  last  edition  of  the  Manual.  The  first  paragraph 
of  section  thirteen,  headed  "  Examination  of  Witnesses,"  reads  as 
follows  : 

"  Common  fame  is  a  good  ground  for  the  House  to  proceed  to  inquiry,  and  even 
to  accusation." 

This,  sir,  is  more  than  common  fame.  I  repeat,  that  it  is,  so  far  as 
it  appears,  a  direct  charge  by  the  editor  of  a  responsible  newspaper. 
The  information  comes,  we  must  believe,  through  the  Government,  or 
the  agents  of  the  Government,  and  it  is,  therefore,  more  than  common 
fame.     It  is  good  ground,  at  least,  for  instituting  an  inquiry. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  I  desire  to  ask  the  gentleman  from  Penn- 
sylvania whether  he  does  not  know  that  this  is  a  mere  local  item,  and 
that  the  author  of  it  does  not  even  pretend  to  have  seen  the  letters. 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  do  not  understand  what  the  gentleman  means  by 
saying  that  the  author  of  the  paragraph  has  not  seen  them. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  I  say  he  does  not  profess  to  have  seen  them, 
and  I  know  that  he  never  did,  for  they  never  were  written,  do  not 
now  exist,  and  never  did  exist. 

Mr.  Hickman.     Who  never  saw  them  ? 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  The  author  of  that  paragraph  in  the  local 
columns  of  this  newspaper. 

Mr,  Hickman.     He  never  saw  the  letters! 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     He  does  not  profess  even  to  have  seen  them. 

Mr.  Hickman.  Whether  it  is  a  local  item  or  not,  it  is  an  original 
article  in  a  responsible  newspaper,  and  is,  therefore,  presumed  to  have 
been  inserted  under  the  direct  supervision  of  the  editor,  if  not  written 
by  him. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  has  alluded 
to  suspicions  existing  heretofore.  Now,  I  desire  to  know  of  him, 
whether  he  ever  heard  of  any  specific  item  on  which  any  such  suspicions 
ever  rested — any  thing  other  than  wofds  spoken  in  this  House  or  made 
public  over  mj^  own  name  ? 

Mr.  Hickman.     Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     Well,  let  us  have  it. 

Mr.  Hickman.     I  have  heard  a  thousand. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     Name  a  single  one. 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  do  not  desire  to  do  any  injustice  to  the  gentleman 
from  Ohio. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     I  have  asked  the  gentleman,  and  I  demand  a 


CHAEGES    OF    DISLOYALTY    KEPELLED.  333 

direct  answer  to  iny  question,  whether  he  can  specify  one  single 
item  ? 

Mr.  Hickman.     I  wil]  reply  to  it  directly. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  Or  does  tlie  gentleman  mean  merely  the  news- 
paper slanders  that  have  been  published  against  me,  and  which  I  have 
denounced  as  false,  over  and  over  again,  in  cards,  and  on  the  floor  of 
this  House  ? 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  know  nothing  about  that,  sir.  I  know  that  suspi- 
cions may  well  exist,  and  I  know  they  do  exist,  where  denials  accom- 
pany them. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  Yes  ;  I  know  that  fact  in  the  gentleman's  own 
case. 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  have  no  controversy  with  .the  gentleman  from  Ohio, 
nor  am  I  here  to  defend  myself  in  the  course  which  I  have  taken.  Let 
him  defend  himself,  and  allow  me  to  take  care  of  myself,  as  I  expect  to 
be  able  to  do. 

Mr.  Richardson.  Will  the  gentlen:^an  from  Pennsylvania  allow 
me 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  will  not  suffer  any  interruption  except  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Ohio.  He  has  a  right  to  interrupt  "me,  and  I  am  glad  he 
does  so,  because  I  do  not  want  to  put  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  in  any 
false  position  any  more  than  I  would  desire  to  be  myself  placed  in  one; 
and  I  will  not  do  it.  T  do  say,  most  distinctly,  that  suspicions  have 
existed  against  the  loyalty  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio;  and  I  would 
not  have  referred  to  them  at  all  if  I  had  not  been  satisfied  that  he  him- 
self knew  of  the  existence  of  those  suspicions  as  well  as  I  did.  Indeed, 
the  remarks  which  preceded  my  rising  on  this  floor  indicated  the  fact, 
more  clearly  than  I  myself  could  indicate  it  by  any  thing  that  I  could 
say,  that  he  was  in  possession  of  a  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  those 
suspicions,  for  he  got  up  to  repel  them,  not  merely  such  as  are  con- 
tained in  this  article  in  question,  but  in  general  terms — general  suspi- 
cions and  imputations  against  his  character.  That  was  deemed  right  by 
him,  sir.     I  have  nothing  to  say  against  it. 

Now,  the  gentleman  asks  for  specifications,  I  am  called  upon  by 
him  to  refresh  my  memory,  and  to  give  an  instance.  I  will  give  him 
one  or  two.  I  may  not  be  able  to  give  more  at  this  time.  Perhaps,  if 
he  were  to  give  me  time,  I  would  be  able  to  refer  him  to  many  more 
instances. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     Mr.  Speaker 

Mr.  Hickman.  The  gentleman  must  allow  me  to  answer  his  ques- 
tion, and  then  he  may  interrupt  me.  I  must  reply  to  one  inquiry  at  a 
time.     I  am  now  on  the  witness-stand — brought  to  it  by  the  gentleman 


334  vallakdigham's  speeches. 

from  Ohio.  I  am  on  cross-examination,  and*  he  must,  allow  me  to  an- 
swer one  question  before  he  propounds  to  me  another.  Now,  sir,  I 
refer  to  tlie  fact  of  the  Breckinridge  meetinof  in  the  citv  of  Baltimore, 
where  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  attended,  and  which  gave  rise  to  very 
many  suspicions,  allow  me  to  say  ;  at  least  T  have  heard  a  great  many 
expressed.  Allow  me  again  to  refer  to  the  fact  of  his  attending  a  cer- 
tain dinner  in  Kentucky,  which  was  given,  I  believe,  in  his  honor,  or 
which  was,  at  least,  published  as  such  in  the  papers. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     Allow  me,  right  there 

Mr.  HiCKMAK.     Allow  me  first 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  That  is  a  specific  charge,  which  I  wish  to 
answer. 

Mr.  Hickman.     Not  this  moment. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     I  appeal  to  the  gentleman's  honor. 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  will  treat  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  fairly.  He 
must  receive  all  my  answer  before  he  asks  me  another  question. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  Let  him  oblige  me  by  replying  to  me  specifi- 
cally. 

Mr.  Hickman.  I  am  not  done  with  my  answer,  and  I  refuse  to  yield 
the  floor  until  I  finish  mv  answer.  I  am  entitled  to  be  treated  here 
properly,  as  well  as  the  gentleman  from  Ohio.  I  will  extend  to  him  all 
the  courtesy  that  can  possibly  be  demanded  by  any  gentleman.  That 
is  my  habit,  I  trust.  There  are  many  other  items.  There  was  the 
speech  which  the  gentleman  made  at  the  July  session  in  this  House — a 
speech  which  was  understood  to  be  one  of  general  accusation  and  crim- 
ination against  the  Government  and  against  the  party  having  the  con- 
duct of  this  war.  It  gave  rise  to  a  great  many  suspicions ;  and  the 
gentleman  from  Ohio,  with  his  intelligence,  ought  not  to  be  ignorant  of 
all  these  facts.  Well,  sir,  will  not  conversation  naturally  arise  in  con- 
sequence of  these  facts  ?  And  I  appeal  to  every  member  of  this  House 
whether  they  have  not  heard  suspicion  upon  suspicion  against  the  loy- 
alty of  the  I'entleman  from  Ohio.  Is  it  not  a  common  rumor,  sir,  that 
he  is  suspected  ?  I  allege  that  it  is  a  common  rumor  in  the  Northern 
States,  and  among  the  loyal  people  of  the  Loyal  States,  that  the  gentle- 
man from  Ohio  is,  at  least,  open  to  grave  suspicion,*  if  not  t9  direct  im- 
putation.    That  is  my  answer.     Now  I  will  hear  the  gentleman. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  In  reply  to  the  specification,  and  the  only  one, 
which  the  gentleman  has  been  able  to  point  out,  relating  to  a  public 
dinner  in  Kentucky,  allow  me  to  tell  him  that  my  foot  has  not  pressed 
the  soil  of  Kentucky  since  the  10th  day  of  July,  1852,  when,  as  a  mem- 
ber of  a  committee  appointed  by  the  Common  Council  of  the  city  where 
I  reside,  I  followed  the  remains  of  that  great  and  noble  man,  and  true 


CHAEGES    OF   DISLOYALTY    EEPELLED.  335 

patriot,  Henry  Clay,  to  their  last  resting-place.  I  have  partaken  of  no 
dinners  there,  or  elsewhere,  of  a  political  character,  nor  did  I  ever  at- 
tend any  Breckinridge  meeiing  at  Baltimore,  or  elsewhere,  at  any  time. 
This  is  ray  answer  to  that,  the  only  specification.  And  yet,  the  gentle- 
man dare>  attempt  to  support  that  falsehood,  which  I  here  denonnce  as 
such,  by  alluding  to  suspicions  which  have  been  created  and  set  afloat 
throughout  the  whole  country,  not  merely  against  me,  but  against 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  others,  in  whose  veins  runs  blood  as  patriotic 
and  loyal  as  ever  flowed  since  the  world  began.  I  tell  the  gentleman 
that,  in  years  past,  I  have  heard  his  loyalty  to  the  Union  questioned. 
I  have  known  of  things  which  would  have  justified  me — had  I  relied  on 
authority  similar  to  that  to  which  he  has  attempted  to  give  dignity — in 
introducing  similar  resolutions  to  make  inquiry  into  his  purpose  to  dis- 
rupt this  Union  by  the  doctrines  which  he  has  held,  and  the  opinions 
■which  he  has  expressed.  And  yet,  opinions  and  sentiments,  uttered 
here,  are  "  the  head  and  the  front  of  mv  off"endina:."  It  has  "  this  ex- 
tent,  no  more." 

And,  sir,  I  replied,  some  time  ago,  to  two  others,  which,  I  doubt 
not,  the  gentleman  would  have  dracj^ed  now  out  of  the  mire  and  slough 
into  which  they  have  fallen,  but  that  they  were  answered,  when  thrust 
into  debate  by  the  gentleman  before  me  (Mr.  Hutchins).  I  refer  to 
the  charge  that  I  had  once  uttered  the  absurd  declaration  that  the 
soldiery  of  the  North  and  West  should  pass  over  my  dead  body  before 
they  should  invade  the  Southern  States.  I  denied  it  then,  and  will 
not  repeat  the  denial  now. 

Nor  need  I  refer  ao^ain  to  that  other  charjje,  that  I  had  uttered,  in 
debate,  here  or  els&where,  the  sentiment  that  I  preferred  peace  to  the 
Union  ;  I  have  heretofore  met  that  charge  with  a  prompt  and  emphatic 
contradiction,  and  no  evidence  has  been  found  to  sustain  it.  Referring 
to  that  and  other  charges  and  insinuations,  on  the  7th  of  January  last, 
T  said  to  my  colleague  : 

"  As  to  my  record  here  at  the  extra  session,  or  during  the  present  session,  it 
remains,  and  will  remain." 

And  just  here,  sir,  in  reference  to  the  speech  to  which  the  gentle- 
man alluded,  delivered  on  this  floor,  in  the  exercise  of  my  constitu- 
tional right  as  a  member  of  this  house,  on  the  10th  of  July  last,  I 
defy  him — 1  hurl  the  defiance  into  his  teeth — to  point  to  one  single 
disloyal  sentiment  or  sentence  in  it.  I  proceeded  to  say,  further,  on 
the  7th  of  last  month  : 

"  I  do  neither  retract  one  sentiment  that  I  have  uttered,  nor  would  I  obliterate  a 
Fingle  vote  which  I  have  given.     I  speak  of  the  record,  as  it  will  appear  hereafter, 


336  VALLANDiG ham's  speeches. 

• 

ana,  indeed,  stands  now  upon  the  Journals  of  this  House  and  in  the  Congressional 
Globe.  And  there  is  no  other  record,  thank  God.  and  no  act  or  word  or  tliought 
of  mine,  and  never  lias  been  from  the  beginning,  in  public  or  in  pri\tite,  of  which 
any  patriot  ought  to  be  ashamed.  Sir,  it  is  the  record,  as  I  made  it.  and  as  it 
exists  here  to-d:iy;  and  not  as  a  mendacious  and  shameless  press  have  attempted 
to  make  it  up  for  me.  Let  us  see  who  will  grow  tired  of  liis  record  first.  Con- 
sistency, firmness,  and  sanity,  in  the  midst  of  general  madness — these  made  up 
my  oSence.  But  'Time,  the  avenger,'  sets  all  things  even;  and  I  abide  his 
leisure." 

And  am  I  now  to  be  told,  that  because  of  a  speech  made  upon  this 
floor,  under  the  protection  of  the  Constitution,  in  the  exercise  and  dis- 
charge of  my  solemn  right  and  duty,  under  the  oath  which  I  have 
taken,  that  I  am  to-day  to  be  arraigned  here,  and  the  accusation  sup- 
ported bv  the  addition  of  mere  vague  rnmors  and  suspicions,  which  have 
been  bruited  over  and  over  again,  as  I  have  said,  against  not  myself 
only,  but  against  hundreds  and  thousands,  also,  of  other  most  patriotic 
and  loyal  men  ? 

The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  makes  the  charge  that  I  attended 
a  certain  dinner  in  the  State  of  Kentucky.  Sir,  I  was  invited  to  that 
State,  and  have  been  frequently,  by  as  true  and  loyal  men  as  there  are 
in  that  State  to- day.  I  accepted  no  invitation,  and  never  went  at  all 
I  have  already  named  the  last  and  only  time  when  I  stood  upon  the 
soil  of  Kentucky.  But  I  know  of  nothing  now — whatever  there  may 
have  been  in  the  past — certainly  nothing  to-day  about  Kentucky  that 
should  prevent  a  loyal  and  patriotic  man  from  visiting  a  State  which 
has  given  birth  or  lesidence  to  so  many  patriots,  to  so  many  statesmen, 
and  to  orators  of  such  renown. 

Yet  that  is  all,  the  grand  aggregate  of  the  charges,  except  this  mis- 
erable falsehood  which  some  wretched  sc;ivenger,  prowling  ab  'Ut  the 
streets  and  alleys  and  gutters  of  the  city  of  Baltimore,  has  seen  fit  to 
put  forth  in  the  local  columns  of  a  contemptible  newspaper ;  so  that 
the  member  from  Pennsylvania  may  rise  in  his  place  and  prefer  charges 
against  the  loyally  and  patriotism  of  a  man  who  has  never  faltered  in 
his  devotion  to  the  flag  of  his  country — to  that  flag  which  hangs  now 
•  upon  the  wall  over  against  him ;  one  who  has  bowed  down  and  wor- 
shipped this  holy  emblem  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  old  Union 
of  these  States,  in  his  heart's  core,  ay,  in  his  very  heart  of  hearts, 
from  the  time  he  first  knew  aught  to  this  hour;  and  who  now  would 
give  life,  and  all  that  he  is  or  hopes  to  be  in  the  present  or  the  future, 
to  see  that  glorious  banner  of  the  Union — known  and  honored  once 
over  the  whole  earth  and  the  whole  sea — with  no  stripe  erased,  and 
not  one  star  blotted  out,  floating  forever  over  the  free,  united,  har- 
monious old  Union  of  every  State  once  a  part  of  it,  and  a   hundred 


CHAEGES    OF   DISLOYALTY   EEPELLED.  337 

more  yet  unborn.  I  am  that  man;  and  yet  he  dares  to  demand 
tliat  I  shall  be  brought  up  before  the  secret  tribunal  of  the  Judiciary 
Committee — that  committee  of  which  he  is  chairman,  and  thus  both 
judge  and  accuser — to  answer  to  the  charge  of  disloyalty  to  the 
Union ! 

Sir,  I  hurl  back  the  insinuation.  Bring  forward  the  specific  charo-e ; 
wait  till  you  have  found  something — and  vou  will  wait  longr — somethino- 
which  I  have  written,  or  something  I  have  said,  that  would  indicate 
any  thing  in  my  bosom  which  he  who  loves  his  country  ought  not  to 
read  or  hear.  In  every  sentiment  that  I  have  expressed,  in  every  vote 
that  I  have  given,  in  my  whole  public  life,  outside  this  House,  before  I 
was  a  member  of  it,  and  since  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  sit  here,  I  have 
had  but  one  motive,  and  that  was- the  real,  substantial,  permanent  good 
of  my  country.  I  have  differed  with  the  majority  of  the  House,  differed 
with  the  part}'  in  power,  differed  with  the  Administration,  as,  thank 
God,  I  do  and  have  the  right  to  differ,  as  to  the  best  means  of  preserv- 
ing the  Union,  and  of  maintaining  the  Constitution  and  securing  the 
true  interests  of  my  country ;  and  that  is  my  offence,  that  the  crime, 
and  the  only  crime,  of  which  I  have  been  guilty. 

Mr.  Speaker,  if,  in  the  Thirty-fifth  Congress,  I  or  some  other  mem- 
ber had  seen  fit  to  seize  upon  the  denunciations,  long-continued,  bitter, 
and  persistent  against  that  member  (Mr.  Hickman) — for  he,  too,  has 
suffered,  and  he  ought  to  have  had  the  manhood  to  remember,  in  this 
the  hour  of  sore  persecution,  that  he  himself  has  been  the  victim  of 
slanders  and  detraction,  peradventure — for,  sir,  I  would  do  him  the 
justice  which  he  denies  to  me — what,  I  say,  if  I  had  risen  and  made  a 
vile  paragraph  in  some  paper  published  in  his  own  town,  or  elsewhere, 
the  subject  of  inquiry  and  investigation,  and  had  attempted  to  cast  yet 
further  suspicion  upon  him,  by  reference  to  language  uttered  here  in 
debate,  which  he  had  the  right  to  utter,  or  by  charges  vague  and  false, 
and  without  the  shadow  of  a  foundation  except  the  malignant  breath  of 
partisan  suspicion  and  slander,  what  would  have  been  his  record,  in  the 
volumes  of  your  reports,  and  the  Congressional  Globe,  going  down  to 
his  children  after  him  ?  But,  sir,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  gentle- 
man to  tarnish  the  honor  of  my  name,  or  to  blast  the  fair  fame  and 
character  for  loyalty  which  I  have  earned — dearly  earned,  with  labor, 
and  patience,  and  faith,  from  the  beginning  of  ray  public  career.  From 
my  boyhood,  at  all  times  and  in  every  place,  I  have  never  looked  to  any 
thing  but  the  permanent,  solid,  and  real  interests  of  ray  country. 

Beyond   this,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  deem   it   unnecessary  to  extend  what  I 
have  to  say.     I  would  have  said  not  a  word,  but  that  I  know  this  Com- 
mittee will  find   nothing,  and  that  they  will   be  obliged,  therefore,  to 
22 


338  VALLANDIGIIAiVl's    SPEECHES. 

report, — a  majority  of  tlicm  cheerfully,  I  doubt  not — that  nothing  exists 
to  justify  any  charge  or  suspicion  such  as  the  noember  from  Pennsyl- 
vania lias  suggested  here  to-day.  I  avail  myself  of  the  occasion  thus 
forcrd  on  me,  to  repel  tliis  foul  aiid  slanderous  assault  upon  my  loyalty, 
promptly,  earnestly,  indignantly,  yes,  scornfully,  and  upon  the  very 
threshold.  Sir,  1  do  not  choose  to  delay  week  after  week,  until  your 
partisan  press  shall  have  sounded  the  alarm ;  and  till  an  organization 
shall  have  been  effected  for  the  purpose  of  dragooning  two-thirds  of  this 
House  into  an  outrage  upon  the  rights  of  one  of  the  Representatives  of 
the  people,  which  is  without  example  except  in  the  worst  of  times.  I 
meet  it  and  hurl  it  back  defiantly  here  and  now. 

Why,  sir,  suppose  that  the  course  which  the  member  from  Pennsyl- 
vania now  proposes,  had  been  pursu^ed  in  many  cases  which  I  could 
name  in  years  past;  suppose  that  his  had  been  the  standard  of  accusa- 
tion, and  irresponsible  newspaper  paragraphs  had  been  regarded  as 
evidence  of  disloyalty  or  want  of  attachment  to  the  Constitution  and 
the  Union  ;  nay,  more,  if  a  yet  severer  test  had  been  applied,  what 
would  have  been  the  fate  of  some  members  of  this  House,  or  of  certain 
Senators  at  the  other  end  of  the  capitol,  some  years  ago?  What  pun- 
ishment might  not  have  been  meted  out  to  the  predecessor  (Mr.  Gid- 
dings,  of  my  colleague  on  the  other  side  of  the  House  ?  How  long  would 
he  have  occupied  a  seat  here?  Where  would  the  Senator  from  Massa- 
chusetts (Mr.  Sumner)  have  been  ?  Where  the  other  Senator  from 
Massachusetts  (Mr.  Wilson)?  Where  the  Senator  from  New  Hampshire 
(Mr.  Hale)?  Where  the  three  Senators — Mr.  Seward,  Mr,  Chase,  and 
Mr.  Hale,  two  of  them  now  in  the  Cabinet,  and  the  other  in  the  Senate 
still — who,  in  1850,  twelve  years  ago,  on  the  11th  of  February,  voted 
to  receive,  refer,  print,  and  consider  a  petition  praying  for  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union  of  these  States?  Yet  I  am  to  be  singled  out  now  by 
these  very  men,  or  their  minions,  for  attack  ;  and  they  who  have  waited 
and  watched,  by  day  and  by  night,  with  the  vigilance  of  the  hawk  and 
the  ferocity  of  the  hyena,  from  the  beginning  of  this  great  revolt,  that 
they  might  catch  some  unguarded  remark,  some  idle  word  spoken,  some- 
thing written  carelessly  or  rashly,  some  secret  thought  graven  yet  upon 
the  lineaments  of  my  face,  which  they  might  torture  into  evidence  ot 
disloyalty,  seize  now  upon  the  foul  and  infectious  gleanings  of  an  anony- 
mous wretch  who  earns  a  precarious  subsistence  by  feeding  the  local 
columns  of  a  pestilent  newspaper,  and,  while  it  is  yet  wet  from  the 
press,  hurry  it,  reeking  with  falsehood,  into  this  House,  and  seek  to 
dignify  it  with  an  importance  demanding  the  consideration  of  the  House 
and  of  the  country. 

Sir,  let  the  member  from  Pennsylvania  go  on.     I  challenge  the  in- 


CHARGES    OF   DISLOYALTY   REPELLED.  339 

quiry,  unworthy  of  notice  as  the  charge  is,  but  I  scorn  the  spirit  which 
has  provoked  it.     Let  it  go  on. 

Mr.  Hickman  then  replied  briefly ;  and,  in  the  course  of  his  remarks* 
said:  "As  the  gentleman  has  called  upon  me,  I  will  answer  further. 
Does  he  not  know  of  a  camp  in  Kentucky  having  been  called  by  his 
name — that  disloyal  men  there  called  their  camp  Camp  Vallandigham? 
That  would  not  indicate  that  in  Kentucky  they  regarded  him  as  a  man 
loyal  to  the  Federal  Union. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  Is  there  not  a  town — and  it  may  be  a  camp, 
too — in  Kentucky  by  the  name  of  Hickman  ?     (Laughter.) 

Mr.  Hickman.  Thank  God  !  disloyal  men  have  never  called  one  of 
their  camps  by  my  name.  There  are  a  great  many  Hickmans  in  Ken- 
tucky, but  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  their  acquaintance.  I  have  heard 
of  but  one  Vallandigham. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  And  there  are  a  great  many  Vallandighams 
there,  too. 

Mr.  Hickman,  after  a  few  words  further,  withdrew  his  resolutions ; 
and  there  the  matter  ended. 


Note. — On  the  21st  of  April,  1862,  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  of  Ohio,  attacked  Mr. 
Vallandigham  in  the  Senate,  in  the  following  language  : 

"  I  accuse  them  (the  Democratic  party)  of  deliberate  purpose  to  assail,  through 
the  judicial  tribunals,  and  through  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of 
the  United  Statea,  and  everywhere  else,  and  to  overawe,  intimidate,  and  trample 
under  foot,  if  they  can,  the  men  who  boldly  stand  forth  in  defence  of  their  country, 
now  imperilled  by  this  gigantic  rebellion.  I  have  watched  it  long.  I  have  seen  it 
in  secret.  I  have  seen  its  movements  ever  since  that  party  got  together,  with  a 
colleague  of  mine  in  the  other  House,  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Resolu- 
tions— a  man  who  never  had  any  sympathy  with  the  Republic,  but  whose  every 
breath  is  devoted  to  its  destruction,  just  as  far  as  his  heart  dare  permit  him  to 
go." — Congressional  Globe,  page  1735. 

Quoting  the  foregoing  extract,  in  the  House,  on  the  24:th  of  April,  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham said : 

"  Now,  sir,  here  in  my  place  in  the  House,  and  as  a  Representative,  I  denounce — 
and  I  speak  it  advisedly — the  author  of  that  speech  as  a  liar,  a  scoundrel,  and  a 
coward.     His  name  is  Benjamin  F  Wade." 

In  June,  18G2,  Shellabarger  and  Gurley,  of  Ohio,  presented  printed  petitions  from 
citizens  of  their  own  districts — none  from  Mr.  Vallandigham's — asking  for  his  ex- 
pulsion from  the  House  as  "  a  traitor  and  a  disgrace  to  the  State  of  Ohio."  Tha 
petitions  were  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  consisting  of  the  following 
members :  John  Hickman,  chairman ;  John  A.  Bingham,  William  Kellogg,  Albert 
G.  Porter,  Benjamin  F.  Thomas,  Alexander  S.  Diven,  James  F.  Wilson,  George  H. 
Pendleton,  and  Henry  May — all  of  them  Republicans,  except  May  and  Pendleton. 
This  Committee,  on  the  very  same  day  on  which  the  petitions  were  presented,  by 
a  unanimous  vote,  ordered  them  to  be  reported  back,  and  laid  upon  the  table ;  and 


340  vallandigham's  speeches. 

accordinglv,  on  the  first  day  that  the  Committee  was  called — July  3,  18C2 — Mr. 
Bingham  reported  them  back,  and,  on  his  motion,  they  were  laid  on  the  table,  no 
evidence  whatever  of  cither  "treason"  or  "disgrace,"  having  been  produced  to 
the  Committee. 


SPEECH  ON  THE  "UNITED  STATES  NOTE''  BILL, 
In  the  House  of  Re2^resentative8,  February  3,  1862. 

It  has  been  my  habit,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  premeditate,  whenever  pre- 
meditation was  possible,  whatever  I  have  had  to  say  in  tliis  House; 
for  no  man  has  a  riglit,  in  my  judgment,  to  obtrude  his  inmiature  and 
undigested  thoughts  and  opinions  upon  a  deliberative  assembly.  PVom 
the  laboratory  of  his  mind  and  the  store-house  of  his  memory,  it  is  his 
duty  to  bring  forth,  at  all  times,  as  the  occasion  may  permit,  whatever 
is  most  valuable;  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  inspiration  in  matters 
of  either  law  or  legislation,  and  least  of  all,  certainly,  upon  questions 
of  finance.  And  just  at  this  monient,  especially,  the  country  and  the 
Government  demand  sound  philosophy  and  stern  facts  ;  not  vain  theo- 
ries, or  what  is  worse  still,  delusive  and  hazardous  experiments  and 
contrivances.  Experimentum  in  v'di  cor  pore  ;  and  never  was  the  maxim 
more  applicable. 

If,  therefore,  sir,  I  have  prepared  myself  now  a  little  more  elabo- 
rately than  heretofore,  the  complexit}',  delicacy,  and  magnitude,  not  to 
say  novelty,  of  the  subject  in  late  years,  are  my  justification.  And  I 
do,  from  my  lieart,  and  with  the  deepest  sincerity,  lament  that  I  am 
not  now  master  of  the  whole  science  of  political  economy  and  finance; 
and  am  unable,  therefore,  and  because  that  I  have  not  that  divine  order 
of  intellect,  which  is  able  to  seize  hold  of  it.  and  to  comprehend  and 
fathom  it  as  if  by  intuition,  to  discuss  it  as  its  immeasurable  importance 
demands.  It  happened  to  me,  sir,  to  come  into  pubhc  life,  andeven 
to  attain  majority,  after  the  great  questions  of  currency  and  revenue, 
in  the  administrations  of  Jackson,  Van  Buren,  and  Tyler  had,  for  the 
most  part,  been  settled,  and  to  be  familiar,  therefore,  chiefly  with  a 
subject,  the  discussion  of  which  I  would  to  God  had  never  been  ob- 
truded upon  Congress,  or  the  country,  and  which,  even  now,  I  would 
forever  banish  from  both.  But  at  intervals,  in  years  past,  and  with 
labor  and  diligence  for  some  months  past,  I  have  sought  to  master  the 
facts  and  principles,  and  to  penetrate  somewhat  into  the  philosophical 
mysteries  of  these  great  questions,  and  to  apply  them  firmly  and  faithfully 


OK   THE    ''UNITED    STATES    NOTe"    BILL.  *    341 

to  the  present  and  approaclung  condition  of  the  country.  Committed 
fully  to  any  measure,  and  all  measures  of  finance,  necessary  to  sustain, 
as  .well  the  honor  as  the  credit  of  the  country  in  which  I  was  born, 
and  the  integrity  of  the  Government  of  which  I  am  a  part,  and  espe- 
cially to  adequate  and  just  taxation  for  that  purpose,  I  propose  to-day 
to  discuss  the  subjects  involved  in  this  bill  to  the  best  of  my  ability, 
and  with  becoming  candor  and  freedom,  and  I  may  add  earnestness, 
too;  for  I  have  the  profoundest  conviction  of  their  incalculable  impor- 
tance to  the  interests,  present  and  future,  of  the  United  States,  and  of 
the  people  of  this  whole  continent. 

Nor  am  I  to  be  deterred  from  a  faithful  discharge  of  my  duty,  by 
the  consciousness  that  my  voice  may  not  be  hearkened  to  here,  or  ia 
the  country,  because  of  the  continued,  persistent,  but  most  groundless 
and  malignant  assaults  and  misrepresentations  to  whicli,  for  months 
past,  I  have  been  subjected.  Sir,  I  am  not  here  to  reply  to  them  to- 
day. Neither  am  I  to  be  driven  from  the  line  of  duty  by  them. 
"  Strike — but  hear."  AVhatever  a  silenced  or  a  mendacious  press,  out- 
side of  this  House,  may  choose  to  withhold  or  to  say,  no  man  who  is  fit 
to  be  a  member  of  this  House,  will  allow  his  speech  or  his  votes  or 
his  public  conduct  here  to  be  controlled  by  his  personal  hates  or  preju- 
dices. Sir,  I  recant  nothing,  and  would  expunge  nothing  from  the 
record  of  the  past,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned.  But  my  path  of  duty 
now,  as  a  Representative,  is  as  clear  as  the  sun  at  broad  noon.  The 
Ship  of  State  is  upon  the  rocks.  I  was  not  the  helmsman  who  drove 
her  there  ;  nor  had  I  part  or  lot  in  directing  her  course.  But  now, 
■when  the  sole  question  is,  how  shall  she  be  rescued  ?  I  will  not  any 
longer,  or,  at  least,  not  just  now,  inquire  who  has  done  the  mischief. 
So  long  as  they  who  held  control  insisted  that  she  was  upon  her  true 
course,  and  in  no  danger,  but  prosperously  upon  her  voyage,  though 
in  the  midst  of  the  storm,  I  had  a  right  to  resist,  and  did  resist  and 
denounce  the  madness  which  was  driving  her  headlontj  to  destruction. 
But  now,  that  the  shipwreck  stands  confessed,  I  recognize,  and  here 
declare,  it  to  be  as  much  my  duty  to  labor  for  her  preservation,  as  it  is 
theirs  who  stranded  her  upon  the  beach.  Within  her  sides  she  bears 
still  all  that  I  have  or  hope  for,  now  or  hereafter,  in  this  life  ;  and  he 
is  a  madman  or  a  traitor,  who  would  see  her  perish  without  an  eiTort  to 
save.  Whoever  shrinks  now  is  responsible,  also,  for  some  part,  at 
least,  of  the  ruin  which  shall  follow. 

In  this  spirit  it  is,  sir,  that  I  approach  this  great  question  ;  and  I 
thank  the  House  kindly  for  the  attention  which  they  seem  inclined  to 
accord  to  me,  and  assure  them  that  it  shall  not  be  abused. 

I  do  not  agree,  Mr.  Chairman,  with  the  gentleman  who  opened  this 
debate  [Mr.  Spaulding],  that  this  bill  is  a  war  measure.     Certainly,  sir, 


342  *'  vallandigham's  speeches. 

it  has  been  forced  upon  us  by  the  war ;  but  if  peace  were  restored  to- 
morrow these  $100,000,000  of  Treasury  notes  would  be  just  as  essential 
to  the  public  credit  as  they  are  to-day.  The  argument  of  "  mihtary  ne- 
cessity" has  been  carried  quite  far  enough  already,  without  being  now 
urged  iu  behalf  of  the  proposition — so  unconstitutional,  disastrous,  and 
unjust — to  make  paper-money  a  legal  tender  in  discharge  of  all  debts. 
I  support  this  measure — not,  indeed,  as  reported — impossible — but  as 
I  would  have  it  amended — because  it  is  absolutely  essential  to  even  the 
ordinary  credit  of  the  Government,  and  because,  without  it,  I  see  noth- 
ing but  bankruptcy  to  the  Government  in  the  midst  of  immense  aggre- 
gate wealth  among  the  people.  The  credit  of  the  country  is  the  honor 
and  strength  and  support  of  the  country,  and  it  must  be  maintained  at 
all  hazards,  and  no  matter  who  is  President,  or  what  party  is  in  power. 
And  I  am  not  willing  to  hazard  the  entire  credit,  and  honor,  and  good 
faith  of  the  country,  because  the  Administration  may,  perchance,  use 
this  recuperated  credit,  to  continue  a  war  which  1  have  not  approved. 
"War  is  disunion,"  said  Mr.  Douglas,  and  bankruptcy  is  disunion,  and 
as  a  true  Union  man,  I  have  opposed  the  first,  as  I  shall  labor  now  to 
avert  the  last. 

But  to  return.  No  scheme  of  loan,  or  taxation,  or  national  bank, 
or  currency,  or  other  similar  contrivance,  can  be  devised  and  put  into 
operation  in  time  to  avert  the  ruin.  Therefore  the  Government  must 
fall  back  upon  Treasury  notes,  for  its  present  support.  But  a  single 
question  is  presented  :  what  shall  be  their  form,  and  how  shall  they  be 
floated?  But  inasmuch  as  the  Government  has  no  money,  no  gold  and 
silver  coin — which  is  the  only  money  in  the  world — these  notes,  inca- 
pable, therefore,  of  being  the  representatives  of  money,  must  take  its 
place  as  a  substitute.  They  must  become  currency,  and  pass  or  "run" 
from  hand  to  hand.  But  Treasury  notes,  bearing  interest,  and  payable 
at  a  future  day,  are  not  fitted  to  run  or  pass  as  money.  They  are  as 
mere  ordinary  promissory  notes;  and  though  often  issued  in  this  form 
— and,  indeed,  never  before  in  any  other,  except  once,  within  the  last 
fifty  years — they  never,  at  any  time,  passed  into  general  circulation,  or 
even  circulation  at  all.  They  are  a  particular  form  of  loan  or  indebted- 
ness, or  security,  and  fit  subjects  for  speculation  on  the  stock  exchange, 
but  are  neither  money,  nor  the  representatives  of,  nor  a  substitute  for 
money.  If  made  payable  on  demand,  they  need  bear  no  interest, 
since  the  great  element  of  value  in  a  paper  currency  is  not  profit  but 
credit.  Therefore,  intending  that  Treasury  notes  should  circulate  and 
become  a  sort  of  currency,  this  bill  proposes,  as  did  also  the  act  of 
July,  1861,  that  they  shall  bear  no  interest,  and  be  payable  in  gold  and 
silver.  This,  unquestionably,  is  the  legal  and  inevitable  inference  from 
the  language  of  the  act  and  the  bill,  so  far  as  appears  upon  their  face. 


ON   THE    "UNITED    STATES    NOTe"    BILL.  343 

But  neither  the  act  nor  the  bill,  the  present  nor  the  original  bill,  pre- 
scribes expressly  in  what  they  shall  be  paid.  But  both  are  "  payable." 
Payable  in  what?  Gold  and  silver,  which  is  the  only  money  that  by 
law  can  be  received  for  the  public  dues,  or  disbursed  in  payment  uf 
debts  owing  by  the  United  States,  except  that  the  Treasury  notes 
already  authorized,  are  declared  receivable  also  in  payment  of  debts 
due  to  the  Government. 

Sir,  this  bill  is  in  two  particulars  modelled,  though  imperfectly,  after 
the  act  of  1815  ;  and,  to  that  extent,  I  approve  of  the  idea  or  theory 
upon  which  it  proceeds.  The  issue  of  notes  without  interest,  and  to 
circulate  as  currency  between  the  Government  and  its  creditors  and 
debtors,  is  for  temporary  purposes,  and  to  meet  the  immediate  and 
pressing  necessities  of  the  government — rand  this  is  the  only  justitication 
for  their  issue — and  they  are  to  be  funded  or  converted,  at  the  will  of 
the  holder,  into  six  per  cent,  stock,  redeemable  twenty  years  after  date ; 
and  so  far  they  are,  therefore,  not  mere  government  paper-money,  like 
the  Continental  bills  of  the  Revolution,  or  the  French  assignats,  or  the 
Austrian  notes  of  1809.  Nevertheless,  sir,  there  are  capital  objections 
to  this  bill,  which  ought,  in  ray  judgment,  to  condemn  it  to  unanimous 
reprobation  and  defeat. 

In  the  first  place,  sir,  it  precedes  where  it  ought  to  follow.  It  assumes 
that  the  promise  to  tax  will  give  credit  before  a  dollar  of  tax  has  been 
laid ;  much  less  collected.  On  the  faith  of  this  credit,  it  expects  the 
free  circulation  of  $50,000,000  already  issued,  and  the  $100,000,000 
proposed  to  be  issued  under  its  own  provisions.  But,  as  if  fearful — and 
most  justly,  too — that  the  promise  may  not  be  received  for  performance, 
and  that,  at  last,  no  adequate  tax  may  be  assessed,  or,  if  assessed,  col- 
lected, it  proceeds  to  declare  these  notes  to  be  money — actual,  substan- 
tial, tangible,  and  veritable  money — and  to  be  a  legal  tender  in  satisfac- 
tion of  all  debts,  public  and  private,  corporate  and  individual,  State  and 
United  States.  The  judgments  of  the  State  courts  are  to  be  discharged 
in  these  notes,  and  State  taxes  to  be  paid  in  them.  All  debts  owing  by 
the  United  States  are  to  be  liquidated  in  them.  They  are  even  to  be 
received  in  payment  of  each  other,  and  one  promissory  note  of  the 
Government  is,  by  compulsion  of  law,  and,  of  course,  if  need  be,  at  last, 
by  armed  force,  to  be  taken  in  full  discharge  of  another  promissory  note 
issued  by  the  same  Government.  These  notes,  sir,  are  declared  "  pay- 
able to  bearer."  Payable  in  what?  Gold  and  silver  and  Treasury 
notes.  But  the  Government  is  truly  apostolic  in  its  poverty.  Silver 
and  gold  it  has  none.  Therefore  one  Treasury  note  is  a  full,  authorized, 
compulsory  discharge  of  another  Treasury  note.  Peter  is  to  be  robbed 
to  pay  Paul ;  and  Paul  in  turn  is  to  pay  Peter  for  a  debt  of  his  own  out 
of  the  fruits  of  the  robbery.     In  plain  English,  and  without  metaphor, 


344  vallakdigham's  spepxhes. 

one  promise  to  pay  is  to  be  made  a  legal  tender  in  satisfaction  of  an- 
other proiiii.sc  to  pay  ;  and  the  promise  of  the  Government  to  pay  in 
paper,  is  to  discharge  the  oblioation  of  the  contract  of  the  individual 
debtor  to  pay  his  creditor  in  gold  and  silver.  And  this  is  tlie  grand 
financial  contrivance  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  with  the  concur- 
rence of  one  half  of  the  Ways  and  Means  ! 

Sir,  if  it  were  tifty-fuld  as  constitutional  as,  in  my  deliberate  judgment, 
it  is  ujiconstitutional  in  letter,  and  abhorrent  to  the  spirit  and  principles 
of  that  instrument,  it  could  not  command  my  support.      I  will  not  renew 
the  discussion-  of  the  question  of  constitutional  power  to  make  Govern- 
ment paper,  or  any  other  paper,  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  any  debts, 
public  or  private,  present  or  prospective.     My  colleague  from  the  first 
district  [Mr.  I'endKton]  the  other  day,  with  a  clearness  and  force  never 
exceeded  in  this  Hall,  disposed  of  that  question  forever.     Ilis  argument 
has  not  been  answered  ;  and,  pardon  me,  sir,  it  never  will  be.     I  concur 
in    it   all,  thoroughly  and   totally,  upon   this  point.     Sir,  disguise  it  as 
you  may,  this  bill   is  but  a  fokceo  loan  from   the  people.     It  is  an 
abuse  and  a  stretch  of  power  which  no  Government,  except  one  either 
in  the  first  throes  of  revolutionary  madness  and  desperation,  or   in  the 
last  asfonies  of  dissolution,  or  in  the  midst  of  the  most  imminent  daniier 
of  cither  bankruptcy  or  conquest  and  overthrow,  and  no  king  or  poten- 
tate, except  a  usurper,  ever  ventured  to  exert.     If  voluntai-ily  submitted 
to,  or  by  fear  or  power  enforced,  it  will  corrupt,  derange,  and  debase  the 
currency,  and  afflict  the  country  with  financial  and  commercial  disaster 
and  ruin,  and  shake  the  foundations  of  public  and  private  credit  for  half 
a  century  to  come.     But  we  shall  be  fortunate  if  it  docs  not  precipitate 
a  revolution,  sooner  or  later,  in  our  own  midst.     In  ordinary  times,  cer- 
tainly not ;  but  let  us  not  forget  that  \yc  are  in  the  very  crisis  of  a  con- 
vulsion, equalled  by  but  few  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  wbcre  no 
man  can  reckon  the  course,  or  momentum,  or  extent  of  any  movement 
according  to  any  of  the  ordinary  laws  which  govern  human  affairs.     But 
independent  of  all  this,  tried   by  the  plainest  principles  of  finance,  the 
commonest  maxims  of  political  economy,  as  exhibited  and  enforced  in 
the  experience  of  other  nations,  this  bold,  but  ill-advised  and  most  haz- 
ardous experiment  of  forcing  a  paper  currency  upon  the  people,  ought 
to  be  met  by  the  Representatives  of  the  people  -with  unanimous  and 
emphatic  condemnation.     Otherwise,  the  experiment,  if  successful,  will 
be  followed  by  other  enormous  issues,  till  not  a  dollar  of  gold  or  silver 
will  be  seen  again  in  your  day  or  mine,  and  but  little  of  ordinary  bank 
paper.     Exportation,  hoarding,  melting,  and  manufacture  into  articles  of 
luxury  of  every  kind,  will  follow  as  the  legitimate  and  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  your  irredeemable  Government  paper  currency.     The  golden 


ON   THE    ''' UNITED    STATES    NOTe"    BILL.  345 

age  of  America  lienceforth  will  belong  only  to  the  Saturnia  reyna  of 
poets  and  mytliologists. 

Nor  is  this  all,  nor  the  worst.  An  immense  inflation  or  bloat  in  this 
wonderful  paper-money  which  our  financial  IVIidas  by  his  touch  is  to 
convert  into  gold,  must  come  next.  Cheap  in  material,  easy  of  issue, 
Avorked  by  steam,  signed  by  machinery,  there  will  be  no  end  to  the 
legions  of  paper  devdls  which  shall  pour  forth  from  the  loins  of  the  Sec- 
retary. Sir,  let  the  army  rejoice ;  there  will  be  no  more  "  shoddy,"  for 
there  will  be  no  more  rags  out  of  which  to  manufacture  it. 

And  now,  sir,  what  must  follow  from  all  this  ?  First,  that  which 
never  has  failed  in  times  of  bloated  currency — high  prices,  extravagant 
speculation,  enormous  sudden  fortunes,  immense  fictitious  wealth,  gen- 
eral insanity.  These  belong  to  all  inordinate  and  excessive  paper 
issues,  and  even  to  plethoras  in  the  circulation  of  gold  and  silver,  if  such 
plethoras  could  occur.  But  the  evil  will  not  stop  here.  Every 
banker,  every  lender,  every  merchant,  every  business  man,  and  every 
seller  of  real  or  personal  estate,  or  of  any  thing  else,  compelled  to 
receive  in  payment  for  whatever  he  lends  or  sells,  an  irredeemable  paper- 
money,  dependent  for  its  value  solely  upon  force,  and  without  the  smallest 
credit,  and  himself  having  no  confidence  in  the  Government,  and  no 
special  good-will  to  the  borrower  or  buyer  who  forces  him  to  take  its 
paper,  will  demand  a  still  higher  price,  by  way  of  insurance,  than  if  the 
currency  were  sound  and  safe,  no  matter  how  much  inflated. 

And  now,  sir,  what  is  to  be  the  result  of  all  this  ?  What  else  but  the 
result  from  like  causes  in  years  past  in  foreign  countries  and  in  our  own? 
It  is  written  in  the  commercial  convulsions  and  suff'erings  of  France  in 
1720,  and  of  England  a  century  later,  and  of  the  United  States  in  1837. 
The  collapse  follows  the  inflation,  and  is  terrible  and  disastrous  just  in 
proportion  as  the  bubble  has  been  magnificent.  Your  legal  tender  laws 
Avill  avail  nothing.  They  have  been  tried  before  ;  tried  in  this  country 
and  tried  abroad ;  and  have  always  failed  in  the  end.  The  regent  of 
France  proclaimed  them  in  Law's  time,  in  1717;  and  what  followed? 
Let  M.  Thiers  answer : 

"  Violent  and  vexatious  as  the  measures  were  to  sustain  the  credit  of  the  notes, 
they  were  insufficient  to  give  them  a  value  which  they  diu  not  possess.  Dishonest 
debtors  alone  used  them  to  pay  their  debts.  Coin  was  secretly  used  for  daily  pur- 
chases, and  was  concealed  with  care.  Many  accumulated  it  clandestinely.  The 
greater  part  buried  it  in  the  earth,  and  the  rich  realizers  used  every  artifice  to 
transfer  it  to  foreign  countries.  Another  portion  of  our  coin  left  France ;  and 
although  the  exportation  of  specie  is  not  necessarily  injurious,  it  was  so  at  this 
time,  since  it  left  behind  only  a  false  paper  currency  and  an  imaginary  capital." 

But  again,  sir,  this  bill  declares  these  notes  to  be  "  payable  at  the 


346  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

pleasure  of  the  United  States.^^  Was  ever  such  a  proposition  before 
this  submitted  by  any  k^gitimate,  established  Government  ?  Did  any  of 
the  multitudinous  Mexican  usurpers,  in  the  midst  of  the  direst  convul- 
sions of  that  most  distracted  of  all  countries,  even  in  his  severest  straits, 
ever  " pronounce"  any  thing  more  unjust  and  monstrous?  Sir,  these 
notes  are  not  to  be  the  basis  of  a  future  loan ;  they  are  not  kites  to  raise 
the  wind  with.  They  are  to  be  paid  out  in  discharge  of  past  habilities 
for  debts  which  already  exist ;  for  honest  and  fair  indebtedness  for  past 
services  rendered  or  value  already  received,  as  between  the  Government 
and  the  citizen.  All  these  debts  were  payable  in  gold  and  silver  only — 
in  the  current  coin  and  lawful  money — the  hard  money — of  the  country. 
In  the  absence  of  any  express  stipulation  or  law  to  the  contrary — and 
not  in  one  case  out  of  a  hundred  probably  has  any  such  existed — they 
are  all  payable  by  cash  in  hand  or  on  demand.  And  yet  payment  at  all 
of  this  very  class  of  debts  is,  by  the  terms  of  this  bill,  to  be  postponed 
indefinitely,  unless  indeed  the  creditor  will  accept  bonds  at  six  per 
cent,  depreciated,  it  may  be,  and  if  this  bill  pass  in  its  present  form, 
will  be,  to  eiijhty  or  ninetv  cents  on  the  dollar,  and  redeemable  in 
twenty  years.  The  Government  proposes  to  settle  with  its  creditors, 
and  to  execute  its  promissory  notes  payable  whenever  it  is  ready  or 
finds  it  convenient  to  pay.  In  other  words,  the  debtor  dictates  terms  to 
the  creditor,  and  declares  that  a  debt  payable  in  cash  down  or  on  de- 
mand shall  be  paid  at  the  pleasure  of  the  debtor,  or  otherwise,  in  either 
case,  shall  be  utterly  extinoruished.  0  most  wonderful,  righteous,  and 
equitable  Secretary ! 

Sir,  there  is  no  subject  so  delicate  as  credit.  ^"VTiat  is  it  ?  Confi- 
dence, trust,  faith.  In  its  very  nature  it  is  voluntary,  and  you  can  no 
more  coerce  credit  than  vou  can  compel  belief  in  a  particular  creed  or 
rehgion,  or  love  between  man  and  woman.  It  withers  before  suspicion, 
and  languishes  and  dies  at  the  sight  of  force.  Sir,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIIL,  ParUaraent  passed  "  an  act  for  the  abolishing  of  diversity  of  opinion 
in  certain  articles  concerning  the  Christian  religion."  How  much  worse 
or  more  absurd,  I  ask,  was  that  act  than  the  bill  before  us  ?  Good  faith 
is  the  foundation  of  all  credit ;  but  this  bill  proposes,  not  bold  and  out- 
right, but  timid — I  will  not  say  cowardly — and  indirect  repudiation. 
More  than  this :  it  is  an  open  confession  of  bankruptcy.  If  the  Got- 
ernment  has  solid  means,  it  needs  no  notes.  If  it  has  credit,  why  de- 
clare its  notes  lawful  money  and  a  legal  tender,  equal  with  gold  ?  If  it 
has  neither  means  nor  credit,  it  is  exactly  what  is  meant  by  a  bankrupt 

But  yet,  again,  this  bill  styles  the  paper  which  it  authorizes  to  be 
issued,  "  United  States  notes."  Well,  sir,  words  are  things,  and  this 
change  of  name  is  for  some  purpose.     What  is  it?     I  have  carefully 


ON    THE    "united    STATES    NOTE"    BILL.  347 

examined  every  Treasury  note  act  and  act  referring  to  Treasury  notes, 
public  and  private,  from  the  first,  in  1812,  to  the  present  time,  eighty- 
two  in  number;  and  in  not  one,  not  one,  are  notes  of  this  description 
called  any  thing  but  Treasury  notes.  Sometimes  they  have  been  issued 
as  a  convenient  form  of  temporary  loan  ;  at  other  times  as  evidence  of 
indebtedness  bv  the  Treasury.  But  thev  were  always,  upon  their  face, 
limited  to  the  Treasury  department,  and  were  never  known  in  any  act 
by  any  other  name  than  "  Treasury  notes."  They  never  were  intended 
to  furnish  a  permanent  or  even  a  general  circulation  as  a  commercial 
currency.  They  were  thus  maintained  to  be  not  "  bills  of  credit," 
within  the  then  well-understood  meaning  of  that  term,  and,  therefore, 
not  unconstitutional.  The  act  of  1815  styled  them  Treasury  notes, 
though  issued  in  sums  of  less  than  one  hundred  dollars,  payable  to 
bearer,  without  interest,  transferable  by  delivery,  and  therefore  capable 
of  passing  as  currency.  So  did  the  act  of  July,  1861  ;  and  more  than 
that,  so  did  both  the  title  and  the  body  of  this  same  bill,  as  first  reported 
on  the  7th  of  January. 

Sir,  who  invented  this  new-fangled  term,  "  United  States  notes,"  and 
why  was  it  invented  ?  What  new  light  struck  in  upon  the  Secretary 
between  the  seventh  and  the  twentv-second  of  the  same  month  ?  And 
what  are  these  United  States  notes  but  "  bills  of  credit,"  the  very  bills 
60  abhorrent  to  the  framers  of  the  Constitution?  Most  appropriately 
I  may  say  with  Mr.  Webster,  that  '"  if  the  genius  of  the  old  Confed- 
eration were  now  to  rise  up  in  the  midst  of  us,  he  could  not  furnish 
us  from  the  abundant  stores  of  his  recollection  with  a  more  perfect 
model  of  paper-money ;"  and  I  am  forced  to  add,  also,  or  a  worse 
model,  too. 

Here,  sir,  is  one  of  the  Continental  bills  of  November,  1776.  It  bears 
small  resemblance  to  the  delicate  paper  issues  and  exquisite  engravings 
of  the  present  day  in  the  United  States.  It  smacks  a  little  of  the 
poverty  of  "  Dixie"  as  is  said.  Instead  of  the  effigies  of  Lincoln,  it 
bears  on  its  face  a  veritable  but  rudely-carved  woodcut  of  the  wild  boar 
of  the  forest.  It  was  bad  money,  sir,  but  issued  in  a  noble  cause.  It 
is  redolent  of  liberty ;  it  smells  of  habeas  corpus,  free  speech,  a  free 
press,  free  ballot,  the  right  of  petition,  the  consent  of  the  governed,  the 
right  of  the  people  to  govern,  public  indictment,  speedy  public  trial, 
trial  by  jury,  and  all  the  great  rights  of  political  and  individual  liberty 
for  which  martyrs  have  died  and  heroes  contended  for  ages — although 
I  am  not  quite  sure,  sir,  that  even  now  it  is  altogether  without  some- 
what of  the  odor  of  rebellion  linirerincr  about  it.  But  even  this  Conti- 
nental  bill  purports  to  be  payable,  though  not  paid,  in  specie.  It  re- 
cites that  "  this  bill  entitles  the  bearer  to  receive  four  Spanish  milled 
dollars,  or  the  value  thereof  in  gold  and  silver,  according  to  a  resolution 


4S 


o-i> 


TAT.T.A>'DIGHAM  S    SPZZCILES. 


776,''  and  it  is  issued  in 


of  Congress,  passed  at  Philadelphia,  Nov.  2,  1 
the  name  of  **  the  United  Colonies.*^ 

Bat  thoagh  in  the  midst  of  a  revolation,  and  straggling  for  liberty 
and  life,  and  in  the  darkest  hour  of  that  sore  trial — it  was  just  previous 
to  the  victory  at  Trenton — it  never  occurred  to  the  just  men  and  pa- 
triots of  that  day  to  usurp  the  power  to  make  this  paper-monev  a  legal 
tender,  and  to  force  it,  by  this  usurpation,  into  credit  and  circulation 
by  the  strong  arm  of  the  law ;  and  to  that  extent — and  it  is  groat — the 
United  States  notes  proposed  by  this  bill  are  fifty-fold  worse  and  more 
to  be  abhorred  than  Continental  money.  But  this  paper  of  1776  bears 
no  interest,  is  payable  to  bearer,  payable  in  gold  and  silver,  payable  at 
no  particular  time,  intended  to  circulate  permanently  and  generally  as 
money,  and  without  a  dollar  of  tax  or  revenue  to  support  it.  The  men 
of  that  day  relied  on  patriotism  to  keep  their  bills  in  credit :  and  yet 
we  know  that  even  then,  in  the  purest  and  best  times  of  the  Republic, 
they  s:ink  in  value  till  at  the  close  of  the  war  $1,000  in  paper  were 
worth  bnt  one  dollar  in  specie.  In  short,  sir,  they  so  utterly  depreciated 
that  to  this  day,  if  a  profane  man  would  describe  any  thing  as  totally 
and  hooeles^lv  worthless,  be  would  sav  of  it  that  it  was  ''not  worth  a 
Continental — ioUar" 

And  here,  sir,  before  I  pass  from  this  subject,  allow  me  to  say  that  a 
very  grave  error  has  been  fallen  into  in  this  debate.  The  notes  of  the 
Bank  of  England  were  not  made  a  legal  tender  during  the  suspension 
from  1797  to  1823.  The  bank  was,  by  act  of  Parliament,  prohibited 
fix>m  paying  in  specie.  The  taxes  were  then  very  heavy,  the  expendi- 
tures enormous,  and  the  notes  of  the  bank  were  received  as  cash  in 
payment  of  the  public  dues.  For  this  reason,  mainly,  and  not  because 
thev  were,  either  directlv  or  in  effect,  a  letJ'al  tender,  the  notes,  until  the 
issues  of  the  bank  became  excessive,  did  not  depreciate,  at  least  until 
also  gold  had  begun  to  disappear  in  spite  of  penal  legislation.  But  in 
three  years  the  depreciation  began,  and  from  1800  to  1S14,  it  varied 
fit>m  eight  to  twenty-five  per  cenL  In  1816.  after  the  war,  it  was  six- 
teen and  three-fourths.  Ami  yet  there  were  public  men  then,  just  as 
some  are  found  now,  to  maintain  that  the  value  of  paper-money  had  not 
fallen,  but  that  the  value  of  gold  had  risen.  It  was  precisely  the  argu- 
ment over  again,  of  the  French  National  Assembly,  nearly  twenty  years 
earlier — it  vcas  not  the  asngruit  which  had  lost,  hut  the  franc  vchich  had 
ffained.  But,  sir,  the  act  also  of  1834:  which,  it  is  said,  declared  the 
notes  of  the  bank  a  legal  tender,  has  been  totally  misunderstood.  They 
are  not  now  and  never  were  a  legal  tender  as  between  the  bank  which 
iasaes  them  and  its  creditors,  or  the  holders  of  its  notes.  Xot  at  all,  sir. 
A  prcpc'sition  so  iniquitous  and  monstrous  never  was  enacted  into  law 
by  English   legislators.     It   belongs  to  the  present   Secretary  of  the 


05^   THE    "rXITZD    3TATE5   yOTZ'' 


BILL. 


M9 


Treasury  of  the  Unhed  &ates,  in  the  rear  of  graee,  1S62.     Jasly  did 
Mr.  Canning  boast,  in  1811,  that 

~  Xerer  did  the  vfldest  aad  nasi  hastOe  propihesier  of  nm  to  tbe  Snaiitpea  of 
RngfeniH  Teotore  toptediettiiatatnBe  Aoaldea^«lieB,by^dieaTwdof  FsE>- 
ment,  norainal  aramnt  m  papa*,  vidioat  ninan  to  aaj  real  bt-iiwhrd  Tttae  im. 
gold,  vocld  be  the  fajtaeak  of  the  pidific  aeSSarJ' 

Bat  neither  are  Uiese  notes  a  leg:^  tender  at  aB,  except  so  loi^  as  the 
hank  pays  specie,  and  of  cooise.  while  ther  are  eqniTaleiit  to,  if  not  cob- 
rertible  at  any  moment  all  over  Eogland  into  gold :  ao  that  in  &ct  the 
okservati<Ni  of  Mr.  Barte.  seventy  years  ago,  is  eqnaDy  just  and  tnie 


now : 

"  Oar  par-?T  i?  -::*  -size  in  ?crr 


And 


T-  -- 


ti-s".  5ir.  w!:i 


~?r7r  ^ecarife  iz  li-s- ::  is  :f  ncrsCL    JX  is  pu»t»M 

jro:ir  U-itc-i  ?:a:<s5  nott^l     ^.^  .  are 

payable  :  ;■  C'^arer :  — z^ot  to  be  paid — in  gold  and  a^rer,  payable 

"  at  the  pleasore  of  the  United  States,"  and  meant  to  cireulate  genoaDj- 
and  permanently  as  ciuTesey.  at  least  till  the  Secretarr's  grand  fiscal 
machine,  his  ma^iiificent  3k  atioxai.  pafkbooix,  foimded  npoo  the  very 
stocls  provided  for  by  this  bill,  can  be  pat  in  openHoB,  vhen  this 
&<Ht  of  bills  of  credit  is  to  be  snpplaated  by  anotiiei'  smt  of  ImDs 
of  credit,  which  are  to  become  die  ssAe  earrencr  of  the  coontiT,  and 
to  drive  all  gold  and  silver,  and  <MdinaiT  bank  jMiper,  oat  of  circslar 
tion.     This.  ^.  is  what  is  meant  by  the  phrase  in  the  third  line  of  the 
bin.  **  tor  temporacT  porposes,**  and  nothii^  else  is  meant.     And  now 
sir,  how.  meantime,  are  these  United  States  notes  to  he  floated  ?    Bj 
Tohmtary  credit,  foanded  on  adequate  taxation  I     Xot  at  all,  sir.     Taxa- 
tion to  neariy  or  perhaps  two-thirds  the  same  aaMont  would,  as  I  ^baJl 
presentlr  prove,  float  these  notes  at  par  with  g<Jd  and  aher  inde&iitely. 
Bat  if  taxation  is  meant,  then  no  other  means  of  credit  are  needed. 
How  comes  it.  then,  that  force,  ooercioo,  is  to  be  resorted  to  to  OMopel 
these  notes  into  cirCT]ati<m  ?     The  hifii  of  the  United  States.  SD{^M>rted 
by  taxation,  is  to  be  abandoned,  and  this  paper-money  is  to  be  floated 
in  everv  commercial  and  business  transaction  of  the  ooantry  by  nmn 
f<>rce  of  law,  and  not  voluntary  credit  because  of  the  solvency  of  the 
United  States,  till  a  year  or  two  htaiee  the  Secretary  shall  have  stoc^ 
enoncrh  to  enable  him  to  execute  his  fiiiaw«TiJ  schemes  and  contrivances 
in  fbU.     This.  then,  is  the  first  step  in  the  direction  of  his  grand  fiscal 
and  monetarv  a^ent  which  is  to  maintiiin  the  credit  of  the  Gi>vemment 
and  sopply  the  sole  pap^  cnirency  of  the  coontry ;  and  in  farther  proo^ 
I  refer  to  the  &ct  that  in  his  late  annual  report,  the  Secretaiy  styles  the 
notes  to  be  *•  prepared  for  circulatioii  under  natiottal  direction,"  and 
issued  by  this  monster  fkcautt,  ~  United  Sutes  notes."     Theses  thea^ 
dr,  are  the  reasons  why  the  ancaeot,  aj^roved,  eoostitntioiial 


350  VALLANDIG ham's    SPEECHES. 

"  Treasury  note,"  sanctioned  by  eighty-two  acts  of  Congress,  and  sus- 
tained by  judicial  decisions,  is  to  be  cast  off  and  abandoned  for  one  just 
freshly  coined  for  the  new  financial  nomenclature  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury. 

But  I  liavc  yet  another  objection  to  this  bill.  Secreted  innocently  in 
the  first  section,  I  find  the  following : 

"And  any  holders  of  said  United  States  notes  depositing  any  sum  not  less  than 
fifty  dollars,  or  other  than  a  multiple  of  fifty,  with  the  Treasurer  of  the  United 
States,  or  either  of  the  Assistant  Treasurers,  or  either  of  the  designated  depositaries 
at  Cincinnati  or  Baltimore,  shall  receive  in  exchange  therefor  duplicate  certificates 
of  deposit,  one  of  which  may  be  transmitted  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who 
shall  thereupon  issue  to  the  holder  an  equal  amount  in  bonds  of  the  United  States, 
coupon  or  registered,  as  may  be  desired,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent., 
and  redeemable,  at  the  pleasure  pf  the  Government,  after  twenty  years  from  date ; 
or  in  sums  not  less  than  $2,500,  for  which,  if  requested,  the  Secretary,  if  he  deem  it  ex- 
pedient, may  isiim  similar  bonds,  the  principal  and  irdtrestof  which  may  he  expressed 
in  the  currency  of  any  foreign  country,  and  payable  there." 

So  that  whoever,  though  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  can  gather 
together  $2,500  of  these  notes,  may  convert  them  into  stocks  expressed 
in  the  currency  of  a  foreign  country,  with  principal  and  interest  payable 
there,  and  of  course  in  gold  and  silver  or  its  equivalent ;  while  he  who 
holds  fifty  dollai-s  or  upwards,  but  less  than  §2,500,  is  obliged  to  receive 
domestic  bonds,  payable  at  home,  principal  and  interest,  in  "  United 
States  notes,"  or  the  continental  money  of  1862.  And  now,  sir,  what 
is  the  effect  of  all  this  ?  The  bonds  issued  are  to  be  of  the  same  amount 
as  the  face  value  of  the  United  States  notes,  no  matter  how  much  the 
latter  may  be  depreciated,  and  they  will  depreciate  in  spite  or  because 
of  your  legal  tender  clause ;  and  not  only  this,  but  the  face  value  of  the 
bonds  finally,  and  meantime  of  the  interest,  is  to  be  increased  by  the 
rate  of  foreign  exchange,  whatever  it  may  be  at  the  time  of  the  payment 
of  either  principal  or  interest.  Nor  is  this  all.  The  purpose  of  this 
provision,  discriminating  so  palpably  and  unjustly  between  the  great  and 
the  small  creditors  of  the  Government,  and  providing  for  specie  pay- 
ments to  one  class,  and  paper  payments  to  another,  is  to  enable  the 
Secretary  to  fund  his  United  States  "notes  in  stocks  of  a  higher  value 
than  those  expressed  in  the  home  paper  currency,  so  that  a  surer, 
speedier,  and  more  profitable  accumulation  of  stocks  may  be  had  for  the 
darling  object  of  the  Secretary,  his  grand  fiscal  contrivance.  A  twofold 
purpose  will  thus  be  subserved :  first,  an  earlier  investment  or  funding 
of  these  notes;  second,  a  more  valuable  class  of  stocks  f(,>r  banking 
operations.  To  the  banker  also  who  shall  invest  in  these  bonds,  pay- 
able in  a  foreign  currency  and  country,  there  will  accrue,  not  only  the 
difference  between  the  real  value  of  the  United  States  notes,  and  the  par 
or  face  value  of  the  bonds,  and  the  premium  upon  foreign  exchange,  but 


ON   THE    "united    STATES   NOTe"    BILL.  351 

also  the  profits  to  be  derived  from  the  seveu  per  cent,  interest  on  the 
notes  to  be  circulated  by  the  new  banks,  and  sometimes,  if  not  regularly, 
where  the  bank  is  distant  from  the  city  of  New  York,  or  perhaps  Phila- 
delphia and  Boston — say  in  the  Northwest — the  factitious  exchange, 
equal  to  from  six  to  eighteen  per  cent,  per  annum,  amounting,  with  the 
other  profits  of  banking,  in  all  to  from  twenty  to  forty  per  cent,  to  the 
holder  of  these  stocks  who  shall  invest  them  in  the  Secretary's  new 
banks.  But  the  operation  does  not  stop  here.  The  interest  on  these 
will  be  paid,  of  course,  in  gold  or  its  equivalent ;  and  other  United 
States  notes,  issued  or  reissued  under  this  bill,  will  be  bouo-ht  at  their 
depreciated  value  as  compared  with  gold,  and  converted  into  new  stocks, 
payable  in  a  foreign  country  and  currency;  and  thus  the  circle  of  profits 
upon  an  increased  capital  will  again  be  travelled  round,  till  the  untold 
millions  of  stocks  provided  for  in  the  first  section  of  this  bill  and  the 
$500,000,000  authorized  by  the  second  section,  shall  have  all  been  ex- 
hausted. I 

Sir,  there  is  no  need  for  the  amendment  suggested  the  other  day  by 
the  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  providing  for  the  payment  of  the 
interest  on  these  stocks  in  gold  and  silver.  He  is  not  in  the  secret. 
There  will  be  no  bonds  issued,  and  none  are  intended  or  expected  to  be 
issued,  except  those  payable  in  a  foreign  currency  and  country,  and  of 
course  in  specie.  No  wonder,  sir,  that  every  adventurer  and  stock- 
jobber and  speculator  and  kite-flyer  and  contractor,  too,  outside  of  this 
House  is  pressing  this  monstrous  scheme,  worthy  of  John  Law's  most 
daring  genius,  gigantic  in  its  proportions,  corrupting  in  its  success,  and 
desolating  as  an  earthquake  in  its  final  ruin.  No  wonder  the  Ways  and 
Means  and  the  country  arc  afllicted  daily  with  "spouting  wretches"  and 
scribbling  wretches,  who  raise  the  magic  howl  that  whoever  opposes 
this  great  American  bubble  of  1862,  following  close  upon  the  great 
"national  loan"  bubble  of  1861,  is  in  sympathy  with  the  rebellion,  and 
giving  aid  to  traitors.  Let  us  see,  now,  who  and  how  many  will  dare 
to  stand  up  against  this  clamor,  and  to  hold  fast  to  the  Constitution, 
and  cling  firmly  to  the  real  interests  and  final  safety  and  preservation 
of  the  country. 

Sir,  it  is  altogether  aside  from  my  present  point  of  argument  to  urge 
in  reply  that  this  very  demand  for  stocks,  payable  in  the  currency  of  a 
foreign  country,  wilbnot  only  hasten  the  funding  of  the  notes,  and  ex- 
tend the  loan,  and  thus  the  resources  of  the  Government,  but  will  keep 
up  the  credit  and  par  circulation  of  the  notes  themselves.  Certainly, 
sir :  that  is  part  of  the  idea  of  the  scheme ;  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
result  anticipated  will  follow  in  this  last  particular  also.  But  the  bulls 
and  the  bears  will  have  something  to  do  with  that,  too  ;  and  the  authors 
of  the  contrivance  themselves  have  not  confidence  that  this  demand 


352  valla^'digham's  speeches. 

would  of  itself  float  these  $150,000,000  of  notes  at  tlieir  par  value,  or 
any  thing  near  it ;  else  why  do  they  propose  to  resort  to  that  very  element 
which  above  all  others  tends  to  destroy  credit — -force  ? 

But  I  have  not  done  with  this  section  yet,  sir.  There  is  no  end  to 
the  stocks  which,  payable  in  the  home  paper  currency  provided  for  by 
this  bill,  or  a  foreign  specie  currency,  are  to  be  issued.  The  United 
States  notes  are  to  be  reissued  indefinitely  as  soon  as  funded,  and  funded 
indefinitely  as  fiist  as  reissued.  The  wheel  of  fortune  is  to  be  perpet- 
ually in  motion,  and  at  every  revolution  is  to  throw  out  new^  notes  and 
new  stocks,  till  superseded  by  the  grand  machine  for  manufacturing  a 
national  currency  suggested  by  the  Secretary  in  his  annual  report. 

And  now,  sir,  besides  this  emission  of  notes  and  bonds  as  multitudi- 
nous as  the  sands  of  the  sea-shore,  the  second  section  provides  for  the 
issue  of  8500,000,000  more.  It  recites  that  it  is  "  to  enable  the  Secre- 
tary to  fund  the  Treasury  notes  and  floating  debt  of  the  United  States." 
"  Treasury"  notes  indeed  !  AYhat  Treasury  notes  ?  Xone  are  proposed 
to  be  issued  by  this  bill ;  and  all  issued  under  existing  laws,  including 
the  acts  of  July  and  August,  1861,  are  to  be  funded  in  the  same  manner 
as  provided  for  in  this  section;  unless,  indeed,  the  object  of  the  section 
be,  after  all,  only  to  enable  the  Secretary  to  convert  all  the  outstanding 
Treasury  notes  issued  under  existing  laws,  except  the  $50,000,000 
demand  notes,  amounting,  according  to  the  gentleman  from  New  York 
[Mr.  Spaulding],  to  8103,000,000,  into  bonds,  expressed  in  a  foreign 
currency  and  country,  and  payable  there,  so  as  to  still  further  increase 
the  amount  of  the  more  valuable  and  profitable  class  of  stocks  which 
are  to  constitute  the  basis  of  the  new  national  bank.  The  "  United 
States  notes" — not  "  Treasury"  notes — authorized  by  the  first  section  of 
this  bill,  and  the  demand  notes  issued  under  the  act  of  July  last,  are  to 
be  funded  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  section  itself 

Then,  sir,  we  have  here  some  $103,000,000  of  old-fashioned  Treasury 
notes  payable  at  a  future  day  and  bearing  interest.  We  have  also  the 
floating  debt  estimated  by  the  gentleman  from  New  York  [Mr.  Spaulding] 
at  $100,000,000,  though  in  my  belief,  it  is  more  than  double  that  sum. 
But  why  authorize  $500,000,000  of  stock  wherewith  to  fund  two  or 
three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  of  Treasury  notes  and  floating  debt  ? 
The  secret  lurks  quietly  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  section : 

"  And  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  may  also  exchange  such  bonds  at  any  time 
for  lawful  money  of  the  United  States." 

Sir,  what  does  all  this  mean  ?  A^Tiat  will  be  "  lawful  money"  of  the 
United  States  if  this  bill  pass !  The  issue  of  bonds  is  expressly  declared 
to  be  for  the  funding  of  Treasury  notes  and  the  floating  debt  of  the 
United  States ;  and  the  Secretary  is  authorized  to  issue  them  to  any 


ON   THE    "U^'ITED    STATES    KOTE "    BILL.  353 

creditor  of  the  United  States  who  will  receive  them  at  their  par  value 
in  satisfaction  of  his  demands.  He  may  also  exchange  them  for 
Treasury  notes  heretofore  issued,  or  which  may  he  issued,  under  the 
provisions  of  this  bill,  although  this  bill  provides  not  at  all  for  Treasury 
notes,  either  in  its  title  or  in  the  body  of  it,  but  only  for  the  newly 
devised  "  United  States  notes."  And  yet  this  is  the  bill  which  the 
gentleman  from  New  York  [Mr.  Spaulding]  declared,  without  a  smile, 
to  be  "  simple  and  pei'spiauous  in  its  terms,  and  easy  of  execution !" 
Sir,  I  am  very  sure  he  never  could  have  written  it ;  nor,  I  apprehend, 
has  he  ever  scrutinized  its  language  or  its  provisions  with  critical 
accuracy. 

But  not  only  are  these  stocks  to  be  issued  in  lieu  of  Treasury  notes 
or  discharge  of  floating  debt,  but  the  Secretary  may  also  "  exchange" 
them  for  the  lawful  money  of  the  United  States.  Sir,  I  pass  by  the 
singular  inaccuracy  of  providing  for  the  "  exchange"  of  bonds  for  gold 
and  silver,  or  money  of  any  kind,  as  a  mere  verbal  criticism.  But  are 
these  bonds,  too,  to  be  issued  for  the  United  States  notes  of  the  first 
section  ?  These  notes  are  expressly  declared  to  be  "  lawful  money,"  and 
was  it  not  enough  to  provide  for  the  eternal  circle,  the  endless  chain  of 
issue  and  funding  and  funding  and  reissue  of  the  first  section  ?  Xo 
doubt  the  real  object  of  this  provision  is  to  enable  the  Secretary  to  sell 
these  bonds  for  cash,  and  thus  to  create  a  new  debt,  instead  of  funding 
or  transmitting  a  debt  which  may  exist  previous  to  and  independent  of 
the  bonds.  Why  not,  then,  say  so  openly  in  the  title  and  in  the  body 
of  the  bill  ?  But  I  oppose  this  provision,  and  prefer  that  the  notes  and 
bonds  provided  for  in  this  bill  shall  both  be  issued,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  raising  monev,  but  to  discharsfc  debts  otherwise  incurred.  In  no 
other  way,  I  fear,  can  you  expect  to  float  these  United  States  notes  or 
Treasury  notes,  whichever  you  may  call  them,  at  par  with  gold  and 
silver,  or  the  notes  of  specie-paying  banks. 

And  now,  sir,  what,  I  beg  to  know,  is  the  object  of  all  this,  if  it  be 
not  to  create  an  enormous  and  endless  public  debt,  to  be  interwoven 
with  every  political,  social,  and  business  relation  of  life  ;  to  subjugate 
the  States  and  the  people  perpetually  to  the  Federal  Government,  and 
therefore  never  to  be  extinguished?  The  seven  years  of  famine  are 
upon  us,  and  our  modern  Joseph  is  to  buy  in  the  property  of  the  whole 
people,  and  lease  it  out  to  them  again  as  tenants  at  a  perpetual  rent. 
Sir,  I  commend  to  him  the  ancient  and  significant  Hebrew  proverb : 
Quum  lateres  dupUcantur  venit  Moses — when  the  bricks  are  doubled, 
Moses  comes. 

I  propose,  then,  Mr.  Chairman,  a  substitute  for  the  bill,  omitting  so 
much  of  it  as  purports  to  make  these  notes  a  legal  tender.  But  I  go 
further.  The  Treasury  notes  authorized  by  the  act  of  July  last,  and 
23 


854  vallajStdigham's  speeches. 

those  provided  for  by  this  bill,  are  both  declared  to  be  payable,  the  one 
on  demand,  and  the  other  "  at  the  pleasure  of  the  United  States."  Paya- 
ble in  what?  You  have  no  gold  and  silver.  You  can  borrow  none. 
You  propose  to  collect  8150,000,000  in  taxes  and  imposts.  But  you 
issue  at  the  same  time  $150,000,000  of  Treasury  notes,  declared  to  be 
money,  made  a  legal  tender,  receivable  for  the  public  dues,  and  to  be 
circulated  generally  as  currency ;  and  you  thus  drive  gold  and  silver 
into  vaults  and  hiding  places,  or  under  ground,  and  bank  paper  out  of 
existence.  "What,  then,  can  you,  will  you  receive,  except  these  self-same 
notes  again  into  your  Treasury  ?  And  if  so,  what  but  Treasury  notes 
will  you  have  to  pay  out  ?  Sir,  your  bill  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 
These  are  not  demand  notes.  They  are  not  to  be  payable  to  bearer, 
nor  to  any  one  else,  at  any  time,  nor  at  any  place.  They  are  not  to  be 
"paid"  at  all.  They  are  to  be  funded  or  converted  into  six  per  cent, 
stocks,  redeemable  in  twenty  years.  Sir,  the  public  credit  cannot  be 
maintained  by  a  public  lie.  Your  notes  are  not  money ;  they  will  not 
circulate  as  currency ;  they  w  ill  not  be  taken  as  a  legal  tender,  and  in 
discharge  of  judgments  and  contracts  and  State  debts,  or  private  debts, 
thoun-h  vou  should  send  them  forth  beariuff  ten  times  the  imafje  and 
superscription — the  fair  face  and  form  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  now  Presi- 
dent and  Caesar  of  the  American  Republic. 

Sir,  I  propose  to  abandon  this  false  pretence,  and  to  change  the  form 
of  the  note  itself.  A  Government  note,  payable  on  demand,  or  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  Government,  to  bearer,  in  gold  and  silver,  is  necessarily 
aud  inevitably  a  delusion  and  an  absurdity.  If  the  Government  has 
gold  and  silver  wherewith  to  pay,  it  need  issue  no  Treasury  notes. 
The  necessity  and  the  justification  for  their  issue  cannot  exist  till  the 
Government  is  without  gold  and  silver  or  its  equivalent,  obtained  either 
by  taxation  or  upon  formal  loan.  And  whenever  it  issues  notes  it 
confesses  that  it  relies  for  the  time,  not  upon  funds  in  hand,  but  on  credit 
because  of  funds  to  be  had  at  a  future  day.  And  when  the  note  is  payable 
at  a  future  day  certain,  there  is  no  fraud  and  no  deception.  Not  so 
when  it  purports  to  be  payable  on  demand,  or  at  no  fixed  time  at  all,  and 
certainly  not  when  payable  at  the  pleasure  of  the  debtor,  the  United  States. 
Recall,  then,  as  I  propose,  your  outstanding  demand  notes,  and  conform 
those  which  you  authorize  now  by  this  bill  to  what  they  really  are,  and 
do  not  send  them  forth  seeking  credit  or  to  be  forced  upon  the  people 
by  the  strong  arm,  and  yet  branded  with  falsehood  upon  their  face. 

Instead  of  this  compound  of  delusion  and  force,  I  propose  a  form  of 
Treasury  note  depending  solely  for  its  value  and  circulation  upon  the 
consent  of  the  creditor  or  holder  and  the  solvency  and  credit  of  the 
Government.  And  as  without  taxation  there  can  be  no  credit,  it  is 
founded  wholly  upon  the  basis  of  a  not  far  from  equal,  and  at  all  times 


Ol!i    THE    "united    states    NOTE      BILL.  355 

certainly  an  adequate,  taxation.  It  proceeds  upon  the  assumption — first, 
that  the  Government  is  indebted  in  the  amount  proposed,  and  must  pro- 
vide for  its  creditors,  in  payment,  that  which  is  equivalent  to  currency 
or  cash ;  and,  secondly,  upon  the  right  of  property  which  the  Govern- 
,ment  has  in  so  much  of  the  wealth  of  the  country  as  is  necessary  to 
carry  on  its  legitimate  and  constitutional  operations,  and  to  maintain  its 
credit.  Upon  these  two  corner-stones  it  rests.  The  Government  is  to 
issue  in  payment  of  its  debts  due  to  others  that  which  it  is  to  receive  in 
satisfaction  of  the  debts  due  from  others  to  itself.  It  is  to  tax  the  peo- 
ple to  the  extent  of  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars 
to  maintain  its  good  faith  and  its  integrity  every  way ;  and  it  is  to  fur- 
nish the  people  with  the  medium,  not  the  means,  @f  payment.  If  this 
scheme  fail,  if  these  notes  have  no  credit  and  do  not  ci^-culate  as  substi- 
tutes for  so  much  money,  always  good  in  satisfaction  of  so  much  debt 
due  by  the  people  to  their  Government,  it  will  be  either  because  there 
is  no  sufficient  taxation  laid,  or  if  laid,  not  collected,  or  because  of 
direct  and  successful  repudiation.  And  if  any  of  these,  then  the  Gov- 
ernment cannot  be  maintained  any  longer,  and  is  not  worth  preserving. 

But  we  need  apprehend  none  of  these  results,  I  trust.  The  country 
is  full  of  wealth  and  resources ;  it  is  able,  and,  for  the  purpose  of  main- 
taining the  honor  and  credit  of  the  Government,  which  are  the  credit 
and  honor  of  every  citizen  in  it,  willing,  I  doubt  not,  to  pay  any  amount 
of  taxation  which  may  be  demanded.  We  have  full  constitutional 
power  to  tax.  Here  is  a  coercion  which  I  recognize  and  approve. 
True,  as  Mr.  Burke  said,  it  is  no  more  possible  to  tax  and  to  please, 
than  to  love  and  to  be  wise.  But  is  it  not  wonderful  that  gentlemen 
who  arc  so  fearful  of  their  popularity  that  they  will  not  resort  to  the 
constitutional  coercion  of  taxation,  are  yet  willing  and  eager  to  force 
upon  the  people  instead  of  taxes,  the  unconstitutional,  despotic,  and 
most  disastrous  coercion  of  a  paper  currency  to  be  received  in  satisfac- 
tion of  every  debt,  and  to  enter  into,  and  derange  every  contract,  and 
taint  and  degrade  every  commercial  and  every  business  transaction  of 
every  kind,  under  penalty  of  forfeiture  or  confiscation  of  the  debt? 
Coerce  taxes,  sir,  and  you  secure  a  firm  credit,  and  a  full  and,  what  is 
better,  a  free  and  voluntary  circulation  of  your  Government  paper,  in- 
termingling naturally  with  the  whole  circle  of  the  financial  and  com- 
mercial concerns  of  the  States  and  of  the  people,  without  the  violence, 
derangement,  and  convulsion  of  a  forced  and  odious  and  abhorred 
paper  currency.  If  you  are  afraid  of  the  people,  be  afraid  to  do  wrong, 
not  to  do  right. 

Sir,  instead  of  force,  the  substitute  proposes  to  rely  for  the  credit 
and  circulation  of  these  Treasury  notes — Treasury  certificates  they 
really  are,  but  I  prefer  the  long-established  and   accepted  name — first, 


356  VALLANDIG ham's    SPEECHES. 

upon  their  convertibility  at  the  will  of  the  holder  into  six  per  cent 
stock ;  and  as  they  bear  no  interest  at  all,  the  holders  will  naturally 
seek  to  fund  them  whenever  United  States  stocks  shall  have  been  re- 
stored to  their  par  value.  And  this  will  happen  whenever,  and  not 
before,  its  solid  revenue  shall  have  been  made  sufficient  for  its  onlinary 
expenses,  and  the  punctual  and  certain  payment  of  the  interes-t  on  the 
public  debt,  present  and  prospective,  and  the  collection  of  that  revenue 
made  absolutely  sure.  Whenever  doubt  upon  that  question  is  removed, 
your  stocks  will  go  up  to  par,  and  will  remain  there  or  above  it.  Why 
does  not  this  bill,  instead  of  force,  rely  upon  credit  obtained  by  the 
right  to  fund  these  notes  bearing  no  interest,  in  bonds  with  interest  at 
six  per  cent.  ?  Because  your  stocks  are  already  at  ninety  cents  on  the 
dollar,  and  of  course  no  capitalist  will  invest  par  notes  in  bonds  ten  per 
cent,  below  par.  And  why  are  your  stocks  thus  depreciated  ?  Because 
there  is  a  doubt  whether  the  interest  will  be  paid  punctually  and  surely 
at  maturity.  And,  pardon  me,  sir,  you  never  can  remove  that  doubt 
by  legislation  or  force,  but  only  by  revenue. 

Sir,  I  have  not  referred  to-day  to  a  sinking  fund  as  an  object  of  im- 
mediate importance ;  because  if  revenue  enough  can  be  secured  just 
now  to  pay  the  very  large  interest  on  the  public  debt,  we  shall  have 
done  well  enough  at  pi'escnt,  Avithout  attempting  to  find  ways  and 
means  to  discharge  it,  till  the  enormous  drain  of  millions  a  day  shall  in 
Bome  way  or  other  have  been  arrested.  Sufficient  unto  the  day  will 
that  evil  be.  I  concur,  indeed,  thoroughly  in  the  principle  which 
affirms  that  no  debt  ought  to  be  created  without  at  the  same  time  pro- 
viding means  whei'ewith  to  pay  it  finally.  But  that  principle  should 
have  been  remembered  before,  or  at  least  at  the  time  when,  the  pro- 
digious expenditures  of  the  Government  were  commenced  ;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  act  upon  it  just  now,  when  there  is  scarce  a  dollar  to  be 
had  for  the  most  pressing  wants  of  the  Treasury.  Let  us  seize  the 
earliest  moment  for  it  when  it  shall  have  become  practicable,  and  mean- 
time be  content  to  find  means  for  the  current  and  most  essential  ex 
penses  of  the  Government. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  fundamental  idea  of  this  substitute  is  to  sup- 
port and  float  these  $150,000,000,  by  a  nearly  equal  amount  of  taxa- 
tion and  revenue,  payable  of  course  in  these  notes.  The  Government 
owes  the  people  and  the  people  owe  the  Government,  each  $150,000,- 
000,  and  these  notes  are  primarily  to  be  used  as  a  common  medium  of 
payment  between  them.  Unquestionably  so  long  as  this  relation  of 
mutual  debts  and  credits  subsists  in  nearly  the  same  proportion,  these 
notes  will  float  in  general  circulation  and  in  payments,  or  exchanges, 
or  other  commercial  and  business  transactions  between  citizen  and  citi- 

• 

zen,  even  without  the  funding  clause ;  but  this  clause  is  essential  inas- 


ON   THE    "united    states   NOTe"    BILL.  357 

much  as  the  expenditures  of  the  Government  very  greatly  exceed  the 
$150,000,000,  and  because  the  debt  present  and  future  is  unhappily  to 
last  for  many  years  to  come.  But  these  notes  will  have  this  advantage 
over  bank  paper,  that  they  arc  receivable  at  par  with  gold  and  silver  in 
payment  of  Government  dues,  while  it  is  not.  The  refusal,  therefore, 
of  the  banks  to  receive  and  circulate  them  will  avail  nothing  to  depre- 
ciate their  value,  siuce  their  credit  and  circulation  will  depend,  not  on 
bank  favor,  but  on  taxes  of  a  nearly  equal  amount  which  must  be  paid, 
at  all  events,  and  may  be  paid  in  tliese  same  notes.  They  will  thus  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  bull,  bear,  or  banker. 

Will  they  circulate  as  money,  and  answer  its  purposes  as  well  to  the 
creditors  as  the  debtors  of«the  Government,  sustained  as  they  are  by  all 
these  elements  of  credit?  Sir,  1  do  not  depend  solely  on  theory  and 
deduction  upon  this  point.  We  are  not  without  examples  at  home  and 
abroad.  North  Carolina,  after  the  Revolution,  and  previous  to  the 
adoption  of  the  present  Constitution,  issued  between  four  and  five  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  of  paper,  receivable  in  payment  of  her  public 
dues.  She  declared  it  also  a  legal  tender,  but  her  ratification  of  the 
Constitution  in  November,  1789,  of  course  abrogated  that  provision; 
and  yet,  supported  by  taxation  sufficient  to  pay  her  debts  and  carry  on 
her  State  government,  this  immense  amount  of  paper-money  remained 
in  circulation  for  more  than  twenty  years  at  par  with  gold  and  silver 
during  the  whole  time,  although  her  revenue  was  less  than  one-fourth 
of  the  whole  amount  of  this  currency.  In  like  manner  Russia,  as  late 
as  1827,  had  a  fixed  paper  circulation  of  upward  of  $120,000,000,  in 
the  form  of  bank-bills,  but  having  nothing  to  sustain  it,  except  that  it 
was  receivable  in  payment  of  her  public  dues;  and  yet  it  continued  for 
years  at  par,  although  her  revenue  did  not  exceed  $90,000,000  annu- 
ally. And  in  1888  Mr.  Clay  declared  that  if  the  Government  used  only 
gold  and  silver,  and  its  own  credit,  it  could  even  with  the  then  small 
,  revenue  of  some  $30,000,000  keep  $40,000,000  of  Treasury  drafts  in 
circulation  at  par  all  over  the  Union,  though  they  should  bear  not  a 
cent  of  interest,  and  not  be  fundable  at  last  in  interest-bearing  stocks ; 
and  I  do  not  now  doubt  that  one-third,  possibly  one-half  more  of  these 
Treasury  notes,  than  of  any  given  amount  of  fixed,  undoubted,  and 
punctually  paid  revenue,  could  be  floated  at  par  to-day. 

I  do  not  propose,  Mr.  Chairman,  or  pretend  that  these  Treasury 
notes  are  to  be  convertible  into  gold  and  silver.  They  are  not  payable 
on  demand ;  they  are  not  payable  to  bearer,  nor  payable  at  all.  They 
are  not  to  be  paid,  but  to  circulate  as  a  currency  receivable  in  Govern- 
ment dues,  and  finally  to  be  funded  in  twenty  years'  stocks.  They  are 
not  promises  to  pay,  and  therefore  are  not  paper-money.  They  do  not 
represent  gold  and  silver,  of  which  the  Government  has  none  ;  and  if  it 


358  vallandigham's  speeches. 

had  wherewith  to  pay  notes  on  demand,  it  would  be  under  no  necessity 
and  have  no  justitication  for  issuing  or  circulating  these  notes  at  all. 
Thev  represent  only  Government  dues,  and  their  value  rests  on  the 
credit  of  the  Government — on  its  right  and  power  to  collect  such  an 
amount  of  taxes  as  may  be  needed  to  sustain  that  credit.  The  United 
States  are  to  cease  in  part  for  a  time  to  be  a  specie-paying,  hard-money 
Government.  I  deplore  it  profoundly.  But  imperious  necessity  de- 
mands it.  There  is  no  alternative,  no  matter  what  evils  may  follow. 
It  is  the  best  possible  that  can  be  done  under  tlie  circumstances ;  and 
that  is  the  only  apology  for  suspending,  even  to  that  extent,  the  Inde- 
pendent Treasury,  as  wise  and  beneficent  a  measure  as  ever  was  devised. 
And  yet  it  is  one  thing  for  the  Government, to  receive  and  pay  out  its 
own  paper  or  notes  in  its  own  business,  and  quite  another  to  receive 
and  pay  out  the  paper  bills  or  promises  of  a  bank  as  cash ;  and  as  to 
this  last,  the  Independent  Treasury  system  remains  unchanged. 

But  I  utterly  deny,  sir,  the  right  of  the  Federal  Government  to  pro- 
vide a  paper  currency  intended  primarily  to  circulate  as  money,  and 
meet  the  demands  of  business  and  commercial  transactions,  and  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  paper.  It  is  not  the  intent  or  object  of  the  sub- 
stitute to  furnish  such  a  currency  for  the  country.  Its  purpose  is  to 
provide  a  new  but  temporary  medium,  receivable  for  the  public  dues 
and  suflBcient  only  to  meet  the  increased  fiscal  action  of  the  Govern- 
ment. It  is  not  to  supersede  either  gold  and  silver  or  bank  paper  in 
ordinary  business  and  commercial  aft'airs.  The  tendency  of  all  paper, 
indeed,  is  to  expel  specie  from  circulation  ;  and  it  always  will,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  w^here  it  is  a  mere  substitute  for  It,  and  the  more 
so  just  in  proportion  as  there  is  a  want  of  confidence  in  it.  But  this 
bill  proposes  a  paper  in  addition  to  the  present  currency  of  the  coun- 
try, an  addition  made  necessary  by  the  immensely  increased  disburse- 
ments, and  by  and  by,  of  the  revenues  of  the  Government.  Sir,  the 
whole  amount  of  specie  and  bank  paper  actually  in  circulation  in  the 
United  States,  on  the  1st  of  May,  when  this  increase  began,  was  about 
$400,000,000,  of  which  amount  some  $300,000,000  were  in  the  States 
still  called  loyal.  Of  the  whole  amount,  the  Government  employed  in 
various  ways  $87,000,000;  leaving  $313,000,000  for  the  ordinary 
commercial  and  business  transactions  of  the  country  ;  of  which  amount 
about  $213,000,000  were  circulated  in  the  loyal  States.  Meantime  in 
nine  months,  though  one-third  of  the  States  have  seceded,  the  expendi- 
tures and  operations  of  the  Government  have  gone  up  in  the  remaining 
two-thirds,  from  $87,000,000  to  $600,000,000.  To  meet  this  im- 
mensely increased  fiscal  action,  we  have  but  $213,000,000  of  currency, 
gold  and  silver  and 'bank  paper,  not  including  the  $50,000,000  of  de- 
mand notes  now  in  circulation. 


ON   THE    "united    STATES   NOTE "    BILL.  359 

It  is  true,  sir,  that  in  the  generally  deranged  and  embarrassed  condi- 
tion of  the  country,  a  large  part  of  the  $213,000,000  has  been  with- 
drawn from  ordinary  and  private  business  and  commerce,  and  used  in 
aid  of  the  transactions  of  Government.  But  with  all  this  there  remains 
some  hundreds  of  millions  needed  still.  It  cannot,  indeed,  be  all  sup- 
plied in  this  way,  because  the  limit  to  the  credit  of  the  Government,  by 
virtue  of  which  it  can  float  Treasury  notes,  is  not  the  amount  of  its 
expenditures  and  indebtedness,  but  of  its  solid  revenues.  There  is, 
however,  abundant  room,  as  I  have  just  shown,  for  the  circulation  of 
these  notes,  primarily,  and  therefore  constitutionally,  as  a  medium  be- 
tween the  Government  and  its  tax-payers  and  tax-consumers ;  but,  sec- 
ondarily, as  a  part  of,  and  not  a  substitute  for,  the  common  currency  of 
the  country.  And  it  is  a  consideration  of  no  small  value  to  the  Govern- 
ment, and  bringing  no  loss  to  the  people,  that  as  long  as  they  circulate 
there  will  be  a  large  saving  of  interest,  equivalent  in  one  year,  at  six 
per  cent.,  to  the  sum  of  $900,000  ;  a  considerable  item,  in  ordinary 
times  at  least. 

And  they  have  this  further  advantage  also  over  Treasury  notes  bear- 
ing interest  and  payable  at  a  future  day,  that  the  latter  bear  interest 
from  the  day  they  are  put  out,  but  the  former  only  from  the  time  they 
cease  to  circulate  and  are  funded — another  large  item  in  the  way  of 
economy.  Nor  is  there  any  danger,  sir,  that  they  will  continue  in  cir- 
culation after  the  necessity  which  compels  and  justifies  their  issue  shall 
have  ceased.  As  soon  as  the  credit  of  the  Government  is  restored,  and 
its  bonds  are  at  par  or  command  a  premium,  and  when  its  enormous 
receipts  and  disbursements  shall  have  been  diminished,  not  only  will  it 
be  the  interest  of  all  capitalists  to  fund  them,  but  especially  of  the  banks 
to  drive  them  into  stocks  and  thus  out  of  circulation.  That  day,  in- 
deed, may  be  far  distant. 

Such,  Mr.  Chairman,  is  the  substitute  which  I  have  submitted.  It 
differs  essentially  from  the  bill.  The  one  relies  on  force,  the  other  upon 
credit;  the  one  looks  to  the  direct  and  despotic  coercion  of  law  and 
arms,  the  other  to  the  indirect  and  ordinary  coercion  of  taxation ;  the 
bill  woiild  override  both  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution ; 
the  substitute  follows  and  complies  with  both  ;  the  former  shocks  every 
principle  not  only  of  justice  between  the  Government  and  the  citizen, 
but  of  sound  political  economy ;  the  latter  recognizes  the  eternal  and 
immutable  rules  of  justice,  and  conforms  itself  strictly  to  the  fixed  and 
inexorable  laws  of  commerce  and  trade  ;  and  finally,  the  one  would 
provide  an  unlimited,  irredeemable,  depreciated  paper-money  forced  by 
fear  of  violence  or  confiscation,  upon  the  whole  people  ;  while  the  other 
proposes  only  a  voluntary,  limited,  and  temporary  currency  to  circulate 
primarily  between  the  creditors  and   the  debtors  of  the  Government. 


360 


VALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECHES. 


The  difference  is  radical.  It  is  tlie  difference  between  the  broad  road 
and  the  narrow  way.  The  Secretary  has  chosen  the  former  and  death 
is  at  the  end  of  it. 

"  Oh  for  that  -warning  voice,  which  he,  who  saw 
The  Apocalypse,  heard  cry  in  Heaven  aloud  I" 

To  my  political  friends  let  me  now  appeal  for  support,  not  only  of 
this  substitute,  but  of  the  taxation  which  must  follow  it  as  essential  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  good  faith  and  credit  of  the  Government. 
Forego  the  little  paltry  advantage  which  might  be  secured  from  oppo- 
sition to  the  taxes  necessary  for  that  purpose.  Impair  not  the  estate 
in  order  to  injure  or  annoy  the  tenant.  But  I  put  it  upon  higher  and 
nobler  grounds.  There  is  not  a  member  of  this  House,  I  take  it  for 
granted,  who  does  not  desire  and  hope  and  look  for  an  ultimate,  if  not 
a  speedy  restoration  of  the  Union  of  these  States  just  as  our  fathers 
made  it.  If  there  be  one  who  does  not,  no  matter  on  which  side  of  the 
House  he  sits,  he  has  no  business  here.  I  have  differed  with  the  Ad- 
ministration as  to  the  means,  and  differ  widely  still,  but  never  as  to  the 
end  ;  if,  indeed,  reunion,  the  old  Union,  be  the  end  and  purpose  for 
which  they  are  contending.  But,  I  repeat  it,  bankruptcy  is  disunion 
and  dissolution  in  the  worst  form,  and  would  instantly  end  the  war,  the 
Government,  and  the  Union  forever. 

Finally,  sir,  if  the  committee  and  the  House  shall  proceed  upon  the 
principles  of  justice  and  sound  political  economy  which  have  been 
hitherto  observed  by  every  wise  Government,  and  above  all  by  this  Gov- 
ernment from  the  beginning,  in  the  maintenance  of  its  credit  and  good 
faith,  I  will  lend  a  ready  and  an  earnest  support  to  every  measure 
framed  in  conformity  with  these  principles,  and  intended  and  calculated 
to  build  up  and  to  sustain  the  public  credit  and  good  faith.  Otherwise, 
I  cannot  and  I  will  not  vote  to  bring  down  upon  the  wretched  people 
of  this  once  happy  and  prosperous  country,  the  triple  ruin  of  a  forced 
currency,  enormous  taxation,  and  a  public  debt  never  to  be  extinguished. 


APPENDIX. 

The  following  are  the  material  sections  of  Mr.  Vallandigham's  sub- 
stitute : 

That  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  and  to  provide 
a  currency  receivable  for  the  public  dues,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  with  the 
approbation  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  is  hereby  aitthorized  to  issue,  on 
the  faith  of  the  United  States,  Treasury  notes  in  any  amount  not  exceeding 
$150,000,000,  not  bearing  interest,  transferable  by  delivery,  and  of  such  denomi- 
nations as  he  may  deem  expedient,  not  greater  than  $1,000,  nor  less  than  five  dol- 
lars each :  Provided,  however,  That  $50,000,000  of  said  notes  shall  be  in  lieu  of  the 
demand  Treasury  notes  authorized  to  be  issued  by  the  act  of  July  17,  1861;  which 


ON    THE    "united    states    NOTE       BILL.  361 

* 
said  demand  notes,  so  far  as  issued,  shall  be  taken  up  as  rapidly  as  practicable,  and 
the  notes  herein  provided  for  substituted  for  tliem,  and  no  more  of  said  demand 
notes  shall  be  issued  or  reissued  after  tlie  passage  of  this  act :  And  provided  fur- 
ther, Tliat  the  amount  of  the  two  kinds  of  notes  together  shall  at  no  time  exceed 
the  sum  of  $150,000,000;  and  the  Treasury  notes  herein  authorized  shall  be  re- 
ceivable in  payment  of  all  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  excises,  debts,  and  demands  of 
every  kind  due  to  the  United  States,  and  may  be  paid  out,  under  the  direction  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasurj^,  by  any  disbursing  officer  of  the  United  States  to 
any  creditor  of  the  United  States  who  will  consent  to  receive  the  same,  at  the  par 
value  thereof,  in  discharge  of  the  debt  or  claim  of  such  creditor ;  apd  any  holder 
thereof  depositing  any  sum  not  less  than  $100,  or  some  multiple  of  one  hundred* 
with  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States,  or  either  of  the  Assistant  Treasurers,  or 
either  of  the  designated  depositaries  at  Cincinnati  or  Baltimore,  shall  receive  in 
exchange  therefor  duplicate  certificates  of  deposit,  one  of  which  may  be  transmit- 
ted to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  shall  thereupon  issue  to  the  holder  an 
equal  amount  of  bonds  of  the  United  States,  coupon  or  registered,  as  may  by  said 
holder  be  desired,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  centum  per  annum,  pay- 
able semi-annually,  and  redeemable  at  the  pleasure  of  the  United  States  after 
twenty  years  fiom  the  date  thereof;  and  any  holder  of  said  notes,  beiug  a  citizen 
or  subject  and  resident  of  any  foreign  country,  depositing,  as  aforesaid,  any  sum 
therein  not  less  than  $2,500,  shall,  if  he  demand  it,  receive  similar  bonds  at  the 
above-named  rate  of  interest,  payable  semi-annually,  the  principal  and  interest  of 
which  shall  be  expressed  in  the  currency  of  any  foreign  country,  and  payable 
there.  And  said  United  States  Treasury  notes  shall  be  received  the  same  as  coin, 
at  their  par  value,  in  tiie  sale  or  negotiation  of  any  bonds  that  may  be  hereafter 
sold  or  negotiated  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  with  the  approbation  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  to  any  person  being  a  citizen  and  resident  of  the 
United  States,  and  may  be  reissued  from  time  to  time,  as  the  exigencies  of  the  pub- 
lic interests  shall  require :  Provided,  however,  That  this  right  to  reissue  shall  not 
continue  longer  than  two  years  from  the  passage  of  this  act,  unless  Congress  shall 
hereafter  otherwise  provtde. 

Sec.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  tlie  form  of  said  Treasury  notes  shall  be 
as  follows  :  "  The  United  States  will  receive  this  Treasury  note  in  payment  of  all 
taxes,  duties,  imposts,  excises,  debts,  and  demands  of  every  kind  due  to  the  United 
States,  to  the  value  of  five  dollars,"  or  whatever  sum  or  denomination  may  be  ex- 
pressed thereon,  as  hereinbefore  provided  for. 

Sec.  3.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  to  enable  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to 
fund  the  floating  debt  of  the  United  States,  he  is  hereby  authorized,  with  the  ap- 
probation of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to  issue  on  the  credit  of  the  United 
States,  coupon  bonds,  or  registered  bonds,  to  an  amount  not  exceeding  $200,000,000, 
redeemable  at  the  pleasure  of  the  United  States  after  twenty  years  from  date,  and 
bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent,  per  annum,  payable  semi-annually. 
And  said  bonds  shall  be  of  such  denominations,  not  less  than  fifty  dollars,  as  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  with  the  approbation  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  may  determine  upon ;  or  where  any  creditor  of  the  floating  debt  of  the 
United  States,  in  any  sum  of  not  less  than  $2,500,  being  a  citizen  or  subject  and 
resident  of  any  foreign  country  shall  demand  it,  said  bonds  shall  be  issued  to  such 
creditor,  the  principal  and  interest  therein  being  expressed  in  the  currency  of  any 
foreign  country,  and  payable  there :  Provided,  however,  That  none  of  said  bonds 
shall  issue  except  at  their  par  value ;  and  to  such  creditors  of  the  floating  debt  of 


362  vallakdigham's  speeches. 

the  United  States  as  shall  elect  to  receive  them  in  satisfaction  of  their  demands : 
Provided  further,  ako,  That  the  claims  and  demands  of  such  creditors  shall,  in  all 
cases,  have  been  first  audited  and  settled  by  the  proper  accounting  ofiQcers  of  the 
Treasury. 


ADDRESS 

Of  Democratic  Members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States,  to  the  Democracy  of  the  United  States. 

Washington,  D.  C,  Afay  8,  1862.* 
Fellow-Citizens  : — The  perilous  condition  of  the  country  demands 
that  we  should  counsel  together.     Party  organization,  restricted  within 
proper  limits,  is   a  positive  good,  and   indeed  essential  to  the  preserva- 
tion   of  public  liberty.     Without  it  the  best  government  would  soon 
degenerate  into  the  worst  of  tyrannies.     In  despotisms  the  chief  use  of 
power  is  in  crusliing  out  party  opposition.     In  our  own  country  the 
experience  of  the  last  twelve  months  proves,  more  than  any  lesson   in 
history,  the  necessity  of  party  organization.     The  present  Administra- 
tion was  chosen  by  a  party,  and  in  all  civil  acts  and  appointments  has 
recognized,  and   still   does,  its   fealty   and    obligations  to   that  party. 
There  must  and  will  be  an  opposition.     The  public  safety  and  good 
demand  it.     Shall  it  be  a  new  organization  or  an  old  one?     The  Dem- 
ocratic party  was  founded  more  than  sixty  years  ago.     It  has  never 
been  disbanded.     To-day  it  numbers  one  million  five   hundred  thou- 
sand electors  in  the  States  still  loyal  to  the  Union.     Its  recent  numer- 
ous victories  in  municipal  elections  in  the  Western  and  Middle  States 
prove  its  vitality.     Within  the  last  ten  months  it  has  held  State  con- 
ventions and  nominated  full   Democratic  tickets  in  every  free  State  in 
the  Union.     Of  no  other  party  opposed  to  the   Republicans  can  the 
same  be  said. 

shall  the  democratic  party  be  now  disbanded  ? 

Whv  should   it?     Are   its   ancient   principles  wronfj?     What  are 
they?     Let  its  platforms  for  thirty  years  speak : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  American  Democracy  place  their  trust  in  the  intelligence, 
the  patriotism,  and  the  discriminating  justice  of  the  American  people. 

*  This  Address  was  signed  by  "William  A.  Richardson,  Anthony  L.  Knapp,  and 
James  C.  Robinson,  of  Illinois;  John  Law,  and  Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  of  Indiana; 
"William  Allen,  Chilton  A.  White,  Warren  P.  Noble,  George  H.  Pendleton,  and 
Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Ohio;  Nehemiah  Perry,  of  New  Jersey ;  Philip  John- 
son, and  Sydenham  E.  Ancona,  of  Pennsylvania ;  and  George  K.  Sliiel,  of  Oregon. 


ADDEESS  TO  THE  DEMOCEACT.  363 

"  That  we  regard  this  as  a  distinctive  feature  in  our  political  creed,  which  we 
are  proud  to  maintain  before  the  world,  as  the  great  moral  element  in  a  form  of 
Government  springing  from  and  upheld  by  the  popular  will  ;  and  we  contrast  it 
with  the  creed  and  practice  of  Federalism,  under  whatever  name  or  form,  which 
seeks  to  palsy  the  will  of  the  constituent,  and  which  conceives  no  imposture  too 
monstrous  for  the  popular  credulity. 

"That  the  Federal  Government  is  one  of  limited  power,  derived  solehj  from  the 
CONSTiTUTiox ;  and  the  grants  of  power  made  therein  ought  to  be  strictly  con- 
strued by  all  the  departments  and  agents  of  the  Government ;  and  that  it  is  inex- 
pedient and  dangerous  to  exercise  doubtful  constitutional  powers." 

And  as  explanatory  of  these  the  following  from  Mr.  JeflPerson's  first 
inaugural  : 

"  The  support  of  the  State  Goterniiexts  in  all  their  rights  as  the  most  com- 
petent administrations  of  our  domestic  concerns,  and  the  surest  bulwarks  against 
anti-republican  tendencies. 

"  The  preservation  of  the  General  Government  in  its  whole  constitutional  vigor 
aa  the  sheet-anchor  of  our  peace  at  home  and  safety  abroad. 

"  A  jealous  care  of  the  right  of  election  by  the  people. 

"  The  supremacy  op  the  civil  over  the  military  authority. 

"  Economy  in  the  public  expense,  that  labor  may  be  lightly  burdened. 

"  The  honest  payment  of  our  debts  and  sacred  preservation  of  the  public  faith. 

"  Freedom  of  religion,  freedom  of  the  press,  and  freedom  of  person  under 
protection  of  the  habeas  corpus,  and  trial  by  juries  impartially  selected." 

Such,  Democrats,  are  the  principles  of  your  party,  essential  to  pub- 
lic liberty  and  to  the  stability  and  wise  administration  of  the  Govern- 
ment, alike  in  peace  and  war.  They  are  the  principles  upon  which  the 
Constitution  and  the  Union  were  founded  ;  and  under  the  control  of  a 
party  which  adheres  to  them,  the  Constitution  would  be  maintained 
and  the  Union  could  not  be  dissolved. 

Is  the  policy  of  the  Democratic  party  wrong  that  it  should  be  dis- 
banded ? 

Its  policy  is  consistent  with  its  principles,  and  may  be  summed  up, 
from  the  beginning,  as  follows :  The  support  of  liberty  as  against 
power ;  of  the  people  as  against  their  agents  and  servants ;  and  of 
State  rights  as  against  consolidation  and  centralized  despotism  ;  a  sim- 
ple Government ;  no  public  debt ;  low  taxes  ;  no  high  protective  taiiflF; 
no  general  system  of  internal  improvements  by  Federal  authority ;  no 
National  Bank ;  hard  money  for  the  Federal  public  dues  ;  no  assump- 
tion of  State  debts;  expansion  of  territory;  self-government  for  the 
Territories,  subject  only  to  the  C6nstitution  ;  the  absolute  compatibil- 
ity of  a  Union  of  the  States,  "part  slave  and  part  free;"  the  admis- 
sion of  new  States,  with  or  without  slavery,  as  they  may  elect ;  non- 
interference by  the  Federal  Government  with  slavery  in  State  and 
Territory,  or  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  and,  finally,  as  set  forth  in 
the  Cincinnati  Platform,  in  1856,  and  reaflSrmed  in  1860,  absolute  and 


36:i  vallandigham's  speeches. 

eternal  "  repiiiliation  of  all  sectional  parties  and  platforms  con- 
cernini^  domestic  slavery  which  seek  to  eiubruil  the  States  and  incite  to 
treason  and  armed  resistance  to  law  in  the  Territories,  and  whose 
avowed  purposes,  if  consummated,  must  end  in  civil  war  and  dis- 
union." 

Such  was  the  ancient  and  the  recent  policy  of  the  Democratic  party, 
runuinjT^  through  a  period  of  sixty  years — a  policy  consistent  with  the 
principles  of  the  Constitution,  and  absolutely  essential  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union. 

Does  the  history  of  the  Democr§itic  party  prove  that  it  ought  to  be 
abandoned?  "  By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them."  Sectional  par- 
ties do  not  achieve  Union  triumphs.  For  sixty  years  from  the  inauo^u- 
ration  of  Jefferson  on  the  4th  of  March,  1801,  the  Democratic  party, 
with  short  intervals,  controlled  the  power  and  the  policy  of  the  Federal 
Government.  For  forty-eight  years  out  of  these  sixty,  Democratic 
men  ruled  the  country  ;  for  forty-four  years  and  eight  months  the  Dem- 
ocratic policy  prevailed.  During  this  period  Louisiana,  Florida,  Texas, 
New  Mexico,  and  California  were  successively  annexed  to  our  territory, 
with  an  area  more  than  twice  as  large  as  all  the  original  Thirteen  States 
together.  Seventeen  new  States  were  admitted  under  strictly  Demo- 
cratic administrations — one  under  the  Administration  of  Fillmore. 
From  five  millions,  the  population  increased  to  thirty-one  millions. 
The  Revolutionary  debt  was  extinguished,  >Two  foreign  wars  were 
successfully  prosecuted,  with  a  moderate  outlay  and  a  small  army  and 
navy,  and  without  the  suspension  of  the  habeas  corpus ;  without  one 
infraction  of  the  Constitution;  without  one  usurpation  of  power;  with- 
out suppressing  a  single  newspaper  ;  without  imprisoning  a  single  edi- 
tor; without  limit  to  the  freedom  of  press,  or  of  speech  in  or  out  of 
Congress,  but  in  the  midst  of  the  grossest  abuse  of  both ;  and  without 
the  arrest  of  a  single  "  traitor,"  though  the  Hartford  Convention  sat 
during  one  of  the  wars,  and  in  the  other  Senators  invited  the  enemy  to 
"greet  our  volunteers  with  bloody  hands  and  welcome  them  to 
hospitable  graves." 

Durinsr  all  this  time  wealth  increased,  business  of  all  kinds  multi- 
plied,  prosperity  smiled  on  every  side ;  taxes  were  low ;  wages  were 
high ;  the  North  and  the  South  furnished  a  market  for  each  others 
products  at  good  prices;  public  liberty  was  secure ;  private  rights  un- 
disturbed; every  man's  house  was  his  castle;  the  courts  were  open  to 
all;  no  passports  for  travel;  no  secret  police;  no  spies;  no  informers; 
no  bastiles ;  the  right  to  assemble  peaceably ;  the  right  to  petition ; 
freedom  of  religion,  freedom  of  speech,  a  free  ballot,  and  a  free  press; 
and  all  this  time  the  Constitution  maintained  and  the  Union  of  the 
States  preserved. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  DEMOCRACY.  365 

Such  were  the  choice  fruits  of  Democratic  principles  and  policy, 
carried  out  through  the  whole  period  during  which  the  Demociatic 
party  held  the  power  and  administered  the  Federal  Government.  Such 
has  been  the  history  of  that  party.  It  is  a  Union  party,  for  it  preserved 
the  Union,  by  wisdom,  peaL-c,  and  compromise,  for  more  than  half  a 
century. 

Then  neither  the  ancient  principles,  the  policy,  nor  the  pfist  history 
of  the  Democratic  party  require  nor  would  justify  its  disbandment. 

Is  there  any  thing  in  the  present  crisis  which  demands  it  ?  Tiie  more 
immediate  issue  is, 

TO  MAINTAIN  THE  CONSTITUTION  AS  IT  IS,  AND  TO  RESTORE  THE  UNION 

AS  IT  WAS. 

To  maintain  the  Constitution  is  to  respect  the  rights  of  the  States 
and  the  liberties  of  the  citizen.  It  is  to  adhere  faithfully  to  the  very 
principles  and  policy  which  the  Democratic  party  has  professed  for 
more  than  half  a  century.  Let  its  history,  and  the  results,  from  the 
beginning,  prove  whether  it  has  practised  them.  We  appeal  proudly 
to  the  record. 

The  first  step  towards  a  restoration  of  the  Union  as  it  was  is  to 
maintain  the  Constitution  as  it  is.  So  long  as  it  was  maintained  in 
fact,  and  not  threatened  with  infraction  in  spirit  and  in  letter,  actual  or 
imminent,  the  Union  was  unbroken. 

To  restore  the  Union,  it  is  essential,  first,  to  give  assurance  to  every 
State  and  to  the  people  of  every  section  that  their  rights  and  liberties 
and  property  will  be  secure  within  the  Union  under  the  Constitution. 
What  assurance  so  doubly  sure  as  the  restoration  to  power  of  that 
ancient,  organized,  consolidated  Democratic  party  which  for  sixty  years 
did  secure  the  property,  rights,  and  liberties  of  the  States  and  of  the 
people ;  and  thus  did  maintain  the  Constitution  and  preserve  the 
Union,  and  with  them  the  multiplied  blessings  which  distinguished  us 
above  all  other  nations? 

To  restore  the  Union  is  to  crush  out  sectionalism  North  and  South. 
To  begin  the  great  work  of  restoration  through  the  ballot  is  to  kill 
Abolition.  The  bitter  waters  of  secession  flowed  first  find  are  fed  still 
from  the  unclean  fountain  of  abolition.  That  fountain  must  be  dried 
up.  Armies  may  break  down  the  power  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment in  the  South ;  but  the  work  of  restoration  can  be  carried  on  only 
through  pcjlitical  organization  and  the  ballot  in  the  Xorth  and  West. 
In  this  great  work  we  cordially  invite  the  co-operation  of  all  men  of 
every  party,  who  are  opposed  to  the  fell  spirit  of  abolition,  and  who,  in 
sincerity,  desire  the  Constitution   as  it  is,  and   the  Union   as  it  was. 


366  vallandigham's  speeches. 

Let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead.  Rally,  lovers  of  the  Union,  the  Con- 
stitution, and  of  Liberty,  to  the  standard  of  the  Democratic  party, 
already  in  the  field  and  confident  of  victory.  That  party  is  the  natural 
and  persistent  enemy  of  abolition.  Upon  this  question  ^ts  record  as  a 
national  organization,  however  it  may  have  been  at  times  with  particu- 
lar men  or  in  particular  States,. is  clear  and  unquestionable.  From  the 
beginning  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation  to  the  period  of  the  last  Demo- 
cratic National  Convention  it  has  held  but  one  lanfjuafre  in  regard  to 
it.     Let  the  record  speak  : 

"  liesolved,  That  Congress  has  no  power  under  the  Constitution  to  interfere  with 
or  control  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  several  States,  and  that  such  States  are 
the  sole  and  proper  judges  of  every  thing  appertaining  to  their  own  affairs  not 
prohibited  by  the  Constitution ;  that  all  efforts  of  the  Abolitionists  or  others  made 
to  induce  Congress  to  interfere  with  questions  of  slavery,  or  to  take  incipient  steps 
in  relation  thereto,  arc  calculated  to  lead  to  the  most  alarming  and  dangerous  con- 
sequences, and  that  all  such  efl'orts  have  an  inevitable  tendency  to  diminish  the 
happiness  of  the  people  and  endanger  the  stabihty  and  permanency  of  the  Union, 
and  ought  not  to  be  countenanced  by  any  friend  of  our  pohtical  institutions." 

Upon  those  principles  alone,  so  far  as  relates  to  slavery,  can  the 
Union  as  it  was  be  restored ;  and  no  other  Union,  except  the  Unity 
OF  Despotism,  can  be  maintained  in  this  country;  and  this  last  we 
will  resist,  as  our  fathers  did,  with  our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our 
sacred  honor. 

But  it  is  said  that  you  must  disband  the  Democratic  part}',  "to  sup- 
port the  government."  We  answer  that  the  Democratic  party  has  al- 
ways supported  the  Government  ;  and  while  it  was  in  power  preserved 
the  government  in  all  its  vigor  and  integrity,  not  by  force  and  arms,  but 
by  wisdom,  sound  policy,  and  peace.  But  it  never  did  admit,  and  never 
■will,  thatthis  Administration,  or  any  Administration,  is  "the  Government." 
It  holds,  and  ever  has  held,  that  tlie  Federal  Government  is  the  agent  of  the 
people  of  the  several  States  composing  the  Union  ;  tliat  it  consists  of 
three  distinct  departments — the  legislative,  the  e.xecutive,  and  the  judi- 
cial— each  equally  a  part  of  the  government,  and  equally  entitled  to 
the  confidence  and  support  of  the  States  and  the  people  ;  and  that  it 
is  the  duty  of  every  patriot  to  sustain  the  several  departments  of  the 
government  in  the  exercise  of  all  the  constitutional  powers  of  each, 
which  may  be  necessary  and  proper  for  the  preservation  of  the  gov- 
ernment, in  its  principles  and  in  its  vigor  and  integrity,  and  to  stand 
by  and  defend  to  the  utmost,  the  flag  which  represents  the  government, 
the  Union,  apd  tlie  country. 

In  this  sense  the  Democratic  party  has  always  sustained,  and  will 
now  sustain,  the  government  against  all  foes,  at  home  or  abroad,  in  the 
North  or  the  South,  open  or  concealed,  in  office  or  out  of  office,  in 
peace  or  in  war. 


ADDRESS   TO    THE   DEMOCRACY.  367 

If  this  is  what  the  Republican  party  mean  by  supporting  the  gov- 
ernment, it  is  an  idle  thing  to  abandon  the  old  and  tried  Democratic 
party,  which  for  so  many  years,  and  through  so  many  trials,  supported, 
preserved,  and  maintained  the  government  of  the  Union.  Bat  if  their 
real  purpose  be  to  aid  the  ancient  enemies  of  the  Democracy,  in  sub- 
verting our  present  Constitution  and  form  of  government,  and,  under 
pretence  of  saving  the  Union,  to  erect  a  strong  centralized  despotism 
on  its  ruins,  the  Democratic  party  will  resist  them  as  the  worst  enemy 
to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union,  and  to  free  government  every- 
where. 

We  do  not  propose  to  consider  now  the  causes  which  led  to  the 
present  unhappy  civil  war.  A  fitter  time  will  come  hereafter  for  such 
discussion.  But  we  remind  you  now  that  Compromise  made  your 
Union,  and  Compromise  fifteen  months  ago  would  have  saved  it.  Re- 
peated efforts  were  made  at  the  last  session  of  the  Thirty-Sixth  Con- 
gress to  this  end.  At  every  stage,  the  great  mass  of  the  South,  with 
the  whole  Democratic  party,  and  the  whole  Constitutional  Union 
party,  of  the  North  and  West,  united  in  favor  of  certain  amendments 
to  the  Constitution — and  chief  among  them,  the  well  known  "  Critten- 
den Propositions,"  which  would  have  av*irted  civil  war,  and  maintained 
the  Union.  At  every  stage,  all  proposed  amendments  inconsistent 
with  the  sectional  doctrines  of  the  Chicago  Platform,  were  strenuously 
and  unanimously  resisted,  and  defeated,  by  the  Republican  party. 
The  "  Crittenden  Propositions"  never  received  a  single  Republican  vote, 
in  either  House.  For  the  proof  we  appeal  to  the  Journals  of  Congress 
and  to  the  Congressional  Globe. 

We  scorn  to  reply  to  the  charge  that  the  Democratic  party  is  oppos- 
ed to  granting  aid  and  support  to  the  Federal  Government,  in  main- 
taining its  safety,  integrity,  and  constitutional  supremacy,  and  in  favor 
of  disbanding  our  armies,  and  succumbing  to  the  South.  The  charge 
is  libellous  and  false.  No  man  has  advocated  any  such  proposition. 
Democrats  recognize  it  as  their  duty  as  patriots,  to  support  the  govern- 
ment in  all  constitutional,  necessary,  and  proper  efforts  to  maintain  its 
safety,  integrity,  and  constitutional  authority;  but  at  the  same  time 
they  are  infiexibly  opposed  to  waging  war  against  any  of  the  States  or 
people  of  this  Union,  in  any  spirit  of  oppression,  or  for  any  purpose 
of  conquest  or  subjugation,  or  of  overthrowing  or  interfering  with  the 
rights  or  established  injstitutions  of  any  State.  Above  all,  the  Demo- 
cratic party  will  not  support  the  Administration  in  any  thing  which 
looks  or  tends  to  the  loss  of  our  political  or  personal  rights  and  liber- 
ties, or  a  change  of  our  present  Democratic  form  of  government. 

But  no.  Democrats,  it  is  not  the  support  of  the  government,  in  re- 
storing the  Union,  which  the  party  in  power  require  of  you.     You  are 


3G8  vallandigham's  speeches. 

asked  to  give  up  your  principles,  your  policy,  and  your  party,  and  to 
stainl  by  the  Administration  in  all  its  acts.  Above  all,  it  is  demanded 
of  you  that  you  yield  at  least  a  silent  support  to  their  whole  policy, 
and  to  withhold  all  scrutiny  into  their  public  conduct,  of  every  kind, 
lest  you  should  "  embarrass  tlie  Administration."  You  are  thus  asked 
to  renounce  one  of  the  first  principles  and  the  chief  security  of  a  Demo- 
cratic government — the  right  to  hold  public  servants  respon>ibIe  to 
their  master,  the  people;  to  render  the  representative  accountable  to 
the  constituent ;  the  ancient  and  undoubted  prerogative  of  Americans 
to  canvass  public  measures  and  public  men.  It  is  this  "  high  consti- 
tutional privilege"  which  Daniel  Webster  declared  he  would  "  defend 
and  exercise,  within  the  House  and  out  of  the  House,  and  in  all  places; 
in  time  of  war,  in  time  of  peace,  and  at  all  times  !"  It  is  a  ris;lit  se- 
cured by  the  Constitution ;  a  right  inestimable  to  the  people,  and  for- 
midable to  tyrants  only. 

If  ever  there  was  a  time  when  the  existence  and  consolidation  of  the 
Democratic  party,  upon  its  principles  and  policy,  was  a  vital  necessity 
to  public  and  private  liberty,  it  is  now. 

Unquestionably  the  Constitution  gives  ample  power  to  the  several 
depaitments  of  the  government  to  carry  on  war,  strictly  subject  to  its 
provisions,  and,  in  case  of  civil  war,  with  perfect  security  to  citizens 
of  the  loyal  States.  Every  act  necessary  for  the  safety  and  efficiency 
of  the  government,  and  for  a  complete  and  most  vigorous  trial  of  its 
strength,  is  yet  wholly  consistent  with  the  observance  of  every  pro- 
vision of  that  instrument,  and  of  the  laws  in  pursuance  of  it,  if  the  sole 
motives  of  those  in  power  were  the  suppression  of  the  "  rebellion,"  and 
no  more.  And  yet  the  history  of  the  Administration  for  the  twelve 
months  past  has  been,  and  continues  to  be,  a  history  of  repeated  usur- 
pations of  power,  and  of  violations  of  the  Constitution,  and  of  the 
public  and  private  rights  of  the  citizen.  For  the  proof  we  appeal  to 
facts,  too  recent  to  need  recital  here,  and  too  flagrant  and  heinous  for 
the  calm  narrative  which  we  propose.  Similar  acts  were  done,  and  a 
like  policy  pursued  in  the  threatened  war  witli  France  in  the  time  of 
John  Adams,  and  with  the  same  ultimate  purpose.  But  in  two  or 
three  years  the  people  forced  them  into  an  honorable  peace  with 
France,  rebuked  the  excesses  and  abuses  of  power,  vindicated  the  Con- 
stitution, and  turned  over  the  Federal  Government  to  the  principles 
and  policy  of  the  Democratic  party.  To  the  "  sober  second  thouuht" 
of  the  people,  therefore,  and  to  the  ballot-box,  we  now  appeal  when 
again  in  like  peril  with  our  fathers. 

But  if  every  Democrat  concurred  in  the  policy  of  prosecuting  the 
war  to  the  utter  subjugation  of  the  South,  and  for  the  subversion  of 
her  State  Governments  and  her  institutions,  without  a  Convention  of 


ON    PUBLIC   DEBT,    ETC.  369 

the  States,  and  without  an  overture  for  peace,  we  should  just  ns  reso- 
lutely resist  the  disbanding  of  the  Democratic  party.  It  is  the  only 
party  capable  of  carrying  on  a  war;  it  is  the  only  party  which  has 
ever  conducted  a  war  to  a  successful  issue,  and  the  only  party  which 
has  done  it  without  abuse  of  power,  without  molestation  to  the  rights 
of  any  class  of  citizens,  and  with  due  regard  to  economj'.  All  this  it 
has  done  :  all  this,  if  need  be,  it  is  able  to  do  again.  If  success,  then, 
in  a  military  point  of  view  be  required,  the  Democratic  party  alone 
can  command  it. 

To  conclude  :  Inviting  all  men,  without  distinction  of  State,  section, 
or  party,  who  are  for  the  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  the  Union  as  it  was, 
to  unite  with  us  in  this  great  work  upon  terms  of  perfect  equality,  we 
insist  that — 

The  restoration  of  the  Union,  whether  through  peace  or  by  war, 
demands  the  continued  oi'ganization  and  success  of  the  Democratic 
party ; 

The  preservation  of  the  Constitution  demands  it ; 

The  maintenance  of  liberty  and  free  democratical  government  de- 
mands it ; 

The  restoration  of  a  sound  system  of  internal  policy  demands  it ; 

Economy  and  honesty  in  the  public  expenditures,  now  at  the  rate  of 
nearly  four  millions  of  dollars  a  day,  demand  it ; 

The  rapid  accumulation  of  an  enormous  and  permanent  public  debt, 
demand  it — a  public  debt,  or  liability,  already  one  thousand  millions 
of  dollars,  and  equal,  at  the  present  rate,  in  three  years,  to  England's 
debt  of  a  century  and  a  half  in  growth  ; 

The  heavy  taxation,  direct  and  indirect.  State  and  Federal,  already 
more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  a  year,  eating  out  the  sub- 
stance of  the  people,  and  augmenting  every  year,  demands  it ; 

Reduced  wages,  low  prices,  depression  of  trade,  decay  of  business, 
scarcity  of  work,  and  impending  ruin  on  every  side,  demand  it ; 

And,  finally,  the  restoration  of  the  concord,  good  feeling,  and  pros- 
perity of  former  years,  demands  that  the  Democratic  party  shall  be 
maintained,  and  made  victorious. 


SPEECH   OX    PUBLIC    DEBT,  LIABILITY,  AND    EXPENDITURES, 
In  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  30,  1862. 

Mr.  Speaker  : — Desiring  on  Friday  last  to   leave  for  home   at  an 
early  hour  this  morning,  it  would  greatly  have  suited  ray  convenience 
to  have  addressed  the  House  on  that  day;  but  inasmuch  as  the   chair- 
man of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  [Mr.  Dawes],  after  due  delibera- 
24 


370  vallandigham's  speeches. 

tion  and  upon  solemn  advice,  decreed  that  it  was  not  in  order,  pending 
a  revenue  measure,  to  discuss  the  general  subject  of  revenue  and  expen- 
ditures, but  only  the  particular  items  of  the  bill,  I  was  obliged  to  re- 
main, in  order  that  I  might  speak  to-day. 

Of  this  I  will  not  now  complain.  It  is  but  a  part  of  the  sum  of 
human  disappointments  to  which  we  are  all  subject. 

The  bill  before  us  appropriates  $'200,000,  and  pledges  the  faith  of 
the  United  States  to  the  extent  of  810,000,000  more.  While,  as  a 
Western  man,  I  should  gladly  support  any  measure  really  and  honestly 
for  the  interest  of  the  West,  I  am  constrained  to  oppose  this  bill,  I. 
am  against  it,  first,  because,  in  my  deliberate  judgment,  it  is  wholly 
without  constitutional  warrant.  I  oppose  it  further,  because  the  debt 
and  expenditures  of  the  Government  to-day  are  too  great  to  justify  any 
such  further  assumption  of  liability  as  this  measure  conteniphites.  And 
it  is  upon  this  point  alone  that  I  now  propose  to  address  the  House. 

My  purpose  is  not  to  produce  an  electioneering  document.  At  the 
instance  of  others,  if  at  all,  and  not  by  any  act  of  mine,  shall  my  re- 
marks of  to-day  be  published  and  distributed  in  pamphlet.  My  object 
is  to  vindicate  the  truth  of  financial  history ;  to  ascertain,  as  nearly  as 
may  be  possible,  the  actual  and  full  amount  of  the  debt,  liability,  and 
expenditures  of  the  Government — a  debt,  every  dollar  of  which  feirly 
and  honestly  incurred,  must  be  paid;  for  repudiation  is  but  treason 
m  another  form. 

I  desire  also  to  vindicate  gentlemen  on  this  side  of  the  Chamber  who 
have  so  gratuitously,  wantonly,  and  unjustly  been  censured  and  assailed 
even  to  the  extent  of  insinuations  against  their  loyalty,  for  but  repeat- 
ing the  statements  of  others  as  to  the  enormous  expenditures  and  in- 
debtedness of  the  Government.  I  propose  further  to  justify  by  the 
proof,  those  Republican  members  of  the  Senate  and  this  House  upon 
whose  authority  we  of  the  Democratic  party  here  and  through  the 
country  have  made  the  statements  which  have  so  alarmed  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  and  his  retainers.  Official  accuracy  and  veracity  of  any 
kind  are  rare  virtues  in  this  day,  and  wherever  found,  are  worthy  of 
special  commemoration  and  praise.  , 

Sir,  I  see  nothing  to  be  gained,  but  much,  very  much  to  be  lost  by 
the  vain  effort  to  conceal  the  real  extent  of  the  public  debt  and  expen- 
ditures. In  private  life,  nothing  so  much  indicates,  and  generally 
nothing  so  certainly  precedes  disastrous  bankruptcy,  as  an  attempt  dis- 
honestly to  cover  up  or  withhold  the  true  condition  of  a  business  man 
in  embarrassed  circumstances.  And  the  same  priiaciple  applies  equally 
to  a  government. 

The  gentleman  from  Indiana  [Mr.  Voorhees],  and  the  other  Demo- 
cratic  members   of  this   House,  who  put  forth  recently  a  certain  "  ad- 


ON    PUBLIC    DEBT,    ETC.  371 

dress"  to  the  people,  have  been  unsparingly  denounced  here  and  else- 
where for  asserting  that  the  public  debt  to-day,  the  end  of  the  present 
fiscal  year,  amounts  to  from  seven  hundred  to  one  thousand  million 
dollars,  and  that  the  expenditures  average  now  from  two  to  near  four 
million  dollars  a  day. 

Now,  sir,  upon  what  authority  did  we  assert,  and  had  we  a  right  to 
assert  it  ?  No  Democratic  member  of  this  House  has  access,  or  at  least 
familiar  access,  to  the  Treasury  Department :  none  certainly  to  its 
secrets.  We  have  not  the  means  of  knowing,  by  the  inspection  of  its 
records,^  what  amount  of  indebtedness  has  already  been  incurred,  nor 
what  the  expenditures  are.  Such  access  and  means  of  knowledge  be- 
long alone  to  the  Republican  members  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives,  and  above  all  to  the  members  of  that  party  which 
compose  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  in  the  House,  and  the 
Committee  on  Finance  in  the  Senate,  and  whose  business  it  is  to  deal 
with  the  Treasury. 

A  large,  a  generous  charity,  therefore,  I  say,  ought  to  be  extended 
to  us  who,  after  three  and  four  months'  repeated  and  specific  state- 
ments officially  from  Senators  and  Representatives  as  to  the  amount  of 
debt  and  expenditures,  have  but  put  upon  record  before  the  people  that 
which  we  derived  from  their  authority.  I  propose  then,  sir,  in  the  first 
place,  to  review  and  collate  what  has  been  said  upon  this  subject  within 
the  past  eleven  months  in  this  House  and  the  Senate. 

On  the  25th  of  July,  18G1,  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  said : 

"  It  must  be  recollected  that  the  demand  on  the  Treasury  is  well  nigh  a  million 
dollars  a  day." — Congressional  Globe,  extra  session,  1861,  p.  267. 

Again,  on  the  5th  of  August,  1861,  ten  days  later,  he  said: 

"I  am  alarmed  at  the  expense  we  are  incurring.  This  day.  and  every  day  for 
some  time,  the  nation  has  incurred  an  expense  of  some  one  million  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars.     I   cannot  see  where  the  money  is  to  come  from." — Ibid.,  p. 

4:48. 

That,  sir,  was  before  the  notion  that  the  Constitution  authorized  the 
making  of  the  promissory  notes  of  the  United  States,  or  any  thing  else 
except  gold  and  silver,  a  "legal  tender,"  had  ever  entered  the  brain  of 
any  one,  and  before  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  compassed  and 
devised  his  extraordinary  scheme  of  a  grand  national  paper-mill  for  the 
manufacture  of  money  by  steam. 

Again,  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Dawes],  who  was 
thrust  forward  here  the  other  day  as  the  advocate  to  defend,  upon 
special  retainer,  and  abet  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  his  deliber- 
ate effort  to  underestimate  the  true  amount  of  the  public  debt  and 
daily  expenditures  of  the  Government,  and  who,  by  some  sort  of  finan- 


372  VALLA]S"DIGR.\3l's    SPEECIIES. 

cial  legerdemain,  contrived  to  prove  them  to  be  somewhat  less  than  one 
million  dollars  a  day,  himself,  on  the  13th  of  January  last,  said: 

"Mr.  Speaker,  it  takes  $2,000,000  every  day  to  support  the  Army  in  tlio  field." 

Mark  you,  not  as  he  here  subsequently  suggested,  that  on  that  par- 
ticular 1.3th  of  January,  or  the  day  before  or  the  day  after,  or  any  other 
one  day,  that  was  the  expenditure,  but  "  every  day."  And  this,  too, 
for  tlie  Army  alone. 

But  he  proceeds : 

"  One  hundred  millions  have  been  expended  since  we  met  here  in  the  beginning 
of  December,  upon  an  Army  in  repose." 

Ah  !  indeed.     Why,  sir,  that  is  at  the  rate  of  $2,380,000  a  day  for 

the  preceding  six  weeks,  with  the  Array  "in  repose."     lie  adds: 

"  What  they  will  be  when  that  great  day  shall  arrive — if  it  shall  ever  arrive — 
when  our  eyes  shall  be  gladdened  with  the  sight  of  the  Army  in  motion,  I  do  not 
know."— Congressional  Globe,  1861-2,  vol.  2,  p.  299. 

Well,  sir,  our  eves  were  at  length  "  jrladdened  with  the  sicfht  of  the 
Army  in  motion."  The  grand  Army  of  the  Potomac  did  actually  move ; 
and  yet  then  of  all  others  precisely  is  the  time  which  the  gentleman 
selects  for  severe  censure  npon  members  on  this  side  of  the  House  for 
intimating  the  mere  suspicion  that  the  expenses  which  he  could  not 
even  estimate,  might  be  seven  or  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars  more 
a  day  with  the  Army  "  in  motion  "  than  his  own  statement  of  the  ex- 
penditure for  the  same  Army  "  in  repose." 

But  he  proceeds  again  : 

Another  $100,000,000  will  go  with  this,  as  the  $100,000,000  more  I  have  here 
enumerated,  outside  of  the  daily  support  of  the  Army,  have  gone" — 

Outside  of  the  daily  support  of  the  Army,  indeed  !  Whv,  sir,  that 
is  $200,000,000  in  six  weeks,  or  at  the  rate  of  $4,760,000  a  day.  Oh, 
what  a  "  traitor  "  to  assert  it ! 

"  Another  one  hundred  million  dollars,  I  say,  must  be  added  to  this  before  tho 
4th  of  March!" 

How  long  before  the  4th  of  March?  But  $300,000,000  for  full  three 
months,  are  $1,200,000,000  a  year;  or,  if  he  means  only  $200,000,000, 
that  itself  is  at  the  rate  of  $800,000,000  a  year  for  the  Army  alone,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  other  legitimate  expenses  of  the  Government,  nor 
of  the  gigantic  plunder  and  peculation  which  have  disgraced  it. 

But  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  proceeds  next  in  elegiac  strain  : 

"  Sir,  what  it  may  cost  to  put  down  this  rebellion,  I  care  very  little,  provided  it 
may  be  put  down ;  but,  sir,  faith  without  works  is  dead,  and  I  am  free  to  confess 
that  my  faith  sometimes  fails — my  faith  in  men,  not  in  the  cause." 

Thus  heavily  and  despairingly,  on  the  13th  of  January,  the  Pilgrim 
of  Massachusetts  bore  upon  his  vicarious  back  the  huge  burden  or  pack 


ON   t»UBLIC  DEBT,    ETC.  373 

of  the  sin  of  this  Admiiustration's  indebtedness,  as  he  struggled  on  sor- 
rowfully in  the  financial  Slough  of  Despond,  What  cross — what  sort 
of  a  "cross"  it  was,  at  the  sight  of  which,  some  months  later,  this  vast 
burden  rolled  from  his  shoulders,  no  doubt  some  future  Democratic 
Bunyan,  languishing  in  the  cells  or  casemates  of  your  military  prisons, 
will  hereafter  disclose. 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1862,  the  gentleman  from  New  York  [Mr. 
Spaulding],  a  member  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  said  : 

"But  with  the  Navy  and  an  Army  of  six  hundred  thousand  in  the  field,  requir- 
ing, with  the  other  expenses  of  the  Government,  an  average  daily  expenditure  of 
more  than  one  million  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  " — 

How  much  more?     But  at  that  sum  alone,  it  equals  $584,000,000 — 

this  new  system  of  banking  will  not  afford  relief  to  the  Treasury  in  time  to  enablo 
the  Secretary  to  meet  the  pressing  demands  that  are  made  upon  him." — Congres 
sional  Globe,  1861-2,  p.  524. 

Again,  on  the  4th  of  February,  1 862,  the  gentleman  from  New  York 
[Mr.  Roscoe  Conklin],  assuming  to  estimate  the  expenditure,  ordinary 
and  extraordinary,  from  that  date  to  July  1,  1862,  at  $300,000,000, 
said : 

"This  last  item  is  at  the  rate  of  $2,000,000  per  day  for  one  hundred  and  fifty 
days.  If  §45,000,000  a  month  is  taken  as  the  estimate,  the  item  will  be  $225,000,- 
000.  But  it  will  then  reach  $300,000,000,  because  there  is  an  item  of  a  hundred 
million  nearly  which  will  be  payable  at  the  close  of  the  war,  growing  out  of 
bounty  acts,  and  it  has  been  nowhere  included." 

And  estimating  the  entire  debt  to  July  1,  1862,  at  $806,000,000,  lie 

exclaimed  : 

"  Eight  hundred  and  six  millions !  "Who  can  credit  these  figures  when  he  re- 
members that  the  world's  greatest  tragedian  closed  his  bloody  drama  at  St. 
Helena,  leaving  the  public  debt  of  France  less  than  seventy  million  of  pounds  ?" 

Rank  disloyalty,  all  this !  Sir,  had  I  presumed  to  speak  thus,  my 
fidelity  to  my  country  would  have  been  utterly  denied,  and  the  gen- 
tleman from  Massachusetts  would  have  added  at  least  one  page  more  to 
the  suspicions  and  innuendoes  of  his  speech  of  the  27th  of  May.  The 
gentleman  from  New  York  adds  : 

"  This  enormous  debt  amounts,  for  each  congressional  district  represented  upon 
this  floor,  to  $4,210,000,  and  when  the  war  is  ended,  it  will  be  more  than  five 
million  dollars.  Let  every  gentleman  ponder  upon  the  fact  that  there  is  more 
tha*  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  interest  to  be  paid  every  year  by  his  con- 
gressional district." —  Congressional  Globe,  1861-62,  p.  635. 

Again,  the  gentleman  from  New  Hampshire  [Mr.  Edwards],  setting 
down  the  public  debt  at  a  more  moderate  figure  than  any  one  else, 
nevertheless  declared  it  "  appalling,"  estimating  it  at  $650,000,000 
upon  the  1st  of  July,  1862. 


374  vallats^digiiam's  speeches. 

The  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  again,  on  the 
6th  of  February,  said  : 

"The  daily  expenses  of  the  Government  are  now  about  $2,000,000.  To  carry 
us  on  till  the  next  meeting  of  Congress  would  take  $600,000,000  more,  making, 
before  legislation  could  be  had  at  next  session,  about  $700,000,000  to  be  provided 
for.  "We  have  already  appropriated  $350,000,000,  making  our  entire  debt 
$1,050,000,000."— Congressional  Globe,  1861-62,  p.  C87. 

On  the  12th  of  the  same  month,  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Finance  in  the  Senate,  the  Senator  from  Maine  [Mr.  Fessenden]  said  : 

"  Sir  we  are  contracting  a  large  debt.  At  the  end  of  this  fiscal  year  (July  1, 
1862),  I  suppose  it  will  be,  in  round  numbers,  $750,000,000;  and  at  the  end  of 
the  succeeding  year,  if  the  war  should  continue,  $1,500,000,000." — Congressional 
Globe,  1861-62,  p.  765. 

Still  further,  on  tlie  19th  of  February,  the  gentleman  from  New 
York  [Mr.  Spaulding]  said  : 

"  One  million  six  hundred  thousand  does  not  cover  the  daily  expenditures." — 
Congressional  Globe,  1861-62,  p.  883. 

And,  on  the  same  day,  the  gentleman  from  Maine  [Mr.  Pike]  esti- 
mated our  "  enormous  expenditures  at  from  one  to  two  million  dol- 
lars a  day." — Congressional  Olohe,  1861-62,  p.  887. 

Still  further,  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  the  Ways  and 
Means  [Mr.  Stevens],  on  the  20th  of  February,  1862,  said  : 

"Now,  in  less  than  a  year,  taking  the  public  debt  at  what  my  colleague 
makes  it — Imake  it  more — $1,200,000,000,  what  will  the  interest  be  upon  it  at 
eeven  and  three-tentlis  per  cent.,  for  it  will  all  centre  at  that  rate  of  interest  ?" — 
Congressional  Globe,  1861-62,  p.  900. 

And  again,  on  the  8th  of  April  : 

"I  suppose  our  debt  on  the  1st  of  July  next  will  not  be  less  than  $800,000,000 
"When,  some  time  since,  I  liad  occasion  to  address  the  House  on  the  Treasury 
note  bill,  I  stated  our  expenses  at  $2,000,000.  They  are  now,  and  have  been  for 
some  time  past  over  three  million  dollars  a  day.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  tliat  the  sum 
I  have  stated  will  be  rather  below  than  above  our  indebtedness  at  the  end  of  this 
fiscal  year." — Congressional  Globe,  1861-62,  p.  1577. 

And  the  Senator  from  Maine  [Mr.  Fessenden],  again,  on  the  30th 
of  May,  declared  that,  taking  the  old  debt  and  the  appropriations  for 
the  years  1861-62,  the  whole  amount  would  reach  $670,000,000,  and 
added  : 

"  The  Senator  can  judge  for  himself  whether,  taking  into  consideration  the  odds 
and  ends,  unsettled  claims,  deficiencies,  etc.,  which  will  be  likely  to  come  in  upon 
us,  we  shall  fall  short  of  '^100,000,000."— Congressional  Globe,  1861-62,  p.  2446. 

On  the  6th  of  June,  the  Chairman  of  the  Finance  Committee  of  the 
Senate  [Mr.  Fessenden]  said  : 

"  I  gave  the  other  day,  and  I  can  give  perhaps  a  little  more  accurately  to-day, 
the  amount  of  those  appropriations  for  the  present  year.  The  appropriations  for 
the  year  ending  June  30th,  1862,  were,  at  the  second  session  of  the  Tliirty-Sixth 
Congress,  $71,000,000,  aud  at  the  special  session,  and  at  this  session  of  Congress, 


01^    PUBLIC    DEBT,    ETC.  37-5 

thus  far,  $535,000,000,  making  $606,000,000.  Then  if  you  add  to  that  the  old 
debt  of  $70,000,000,  you  have  $676,000,000  as  the  total  amount.  Gentlemen 
must  be  perfectly  aware  from  their  experience,  when  you  take  into  consideration 
the  state  of  the  country  at  the  present  time,  the  contracts  that  have  been  made, 
the  outstandmg  claims,  the  expenditures  of  which  no  record,  necessarily,  can  be 
made  in  a  time  like  this,  witli  so  vast  an  expenditure,  and  the  deficiencies  that  we 
are  called  upon  almost  every  day  of  the  session  to  meet,  that  3'ou  may  safely  add 
tw^enty  or  thirty  million  dollars  to  that  estimate  which  I  have  thus  stated,  and  in 
that  way  you  have  got  a  little  over  seven  hundred  millions.  I  see  no  escape  from 
the  conclusion,  that  at  the  end  of  the  year,  taking  the  appropriations  and  liabili- 
ties together,  we  certainly  make  no  unreasonable  estimate,  if  we  call  the  amount 
of  what  is  owing  from  us,  provided  notliing  has  been  paid,  seven  hundred  million 
do\laTS."—Congrtsswnal  Globe,  1861-02,  p.  2606. 

Such,  sir,  were  the  repeated  and  reiterated  statements  of  Senators 
and  Representatives,  all  of  them  of  the  Republican  party — the  chair- 
man of  the  Ways  and  Means  in  the  House,  the  chairman  of  the  Fi- 
nance Committee  of  the  Senate,  the  organs,  in  this  Capitol,  of  the 
Treasury  Department,  the  official  mouthpieces  of  the  Secretary,  men 
having  daily  access  to,  and  in  daily  communication  with  him — state- 
ments not  uttered  once  and  at  random,  but  repeated  over  and  over 
again,  and  with  all  possible  accuracy  and  minuteness  of  detail. 
Charity,  a  little  charity,  I  pray  you,  sir,  toward  those  of  us,  who  hav- 
ing no  entrance  within  the  inner  courts  of  the  temple  of  the  Treasury, 
and  no  right  to  penetrate  its  hidden  mysteries,  are  forced  to  content 
ourselves  with  standing  in  awe  at  its  vestibule  that  we  may  catch  the 
whispered  echoes  of  the  oracle  within. 

And  now,  sir,  I  propose  to  prove  beyond  an  honest  controversj^  that 
the  statements  of  the  Republican  Senators  and  Representatives,  upon 
whose  authority  we  of  the  Democratic  party  repeated  them,  were  jus- 
tified to  the  fullest  extent,  by  the  estimates,  by  the  appropriations,  by 
the  authorized  indebtedness,  and  by  the  actual  indebtedness,  as  appears 
from  official  records  the  authenticity  and  verity  of  which  cannot  be 
impeached. 

First,  as  to  the  "  estimates."  These,  indeed,  are  by  no  means  re- 
liable, because  every  two  or  three  months,  and  possibly  every  two  or 
three  weeks,  we  have  additional  estimates  from  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment to  supply  the  continually  recurring  deficiencies.  There  is  a  dis- 
crepancy between  the  estimates  for  the  present  fiscal  year,  made  in 
July  last,  and  those  submitted  on  the  1st  of  December,  of  $213,904, 
000.  The  estimates  of  the  1st  of  July,  were  $318,519,000  ;  and  yet, 
during  a  short  session  of  five  weeks,  Congress  appropriated  over  and 
above  these  estimates  the  sum  of  $47,985,000.  Last  December  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  sent  in  supplementary  estimates,  asking  ad- 
ditional appropriations  to  the  extent  of  $213,904,000.  On  the  16th 
page  of  his  annual  report,  of  that  date,  he  sums  up  the  total  of  esti- 


376  vallandigham's  speeches. 

mated  cxpon.litnres  for  the  fiscal  year  1862  at  $543,406,000,  or  at  the 
rate  of  81, 500,000  every  day  in  the  year.  Deductiiicj  the  estimate  of 
receipts,  §36,800,000,  you  have  as  the  amount  of  debt  to-day,  esti- 
mated by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  himself  seven  montlis  ago,  the 
sum  of  8506,596,000.  To  this  add  the  debt  up  to  July  1,  1861,  of 
190,867,000,  and  you  have  a  sum  total  of  §597,464,510.  And  yet, 
with  even  this  enormous  amount,  he  has  been  forced  since  to  confess 
errors  to  the  extent  of  two  or  throe  hundred  millions  of  dollars  in  his 
estimate  for  the  year.  And  on  the  28th  of  January,  the  gentleman 
from  New  York  [Mr.  Spaulding],  declaring  that  the  Secretary  "sub- 
stantially agreed  with  him  as  to  what  the  expenses  would  be,"  summed 
up  the  debt  at  §650,000,000,  or  nearly  §53,000,000  more  than  the 
Secretary,  in  his  report,  had  set  it  down  only  seven  weeks  earlier. 

I  pass  next  to  the  "  appropriations."  What  further  deficiencies 
are  to  come  in,  or  are  now  pending,  I  know  not ;  but  the  amount  of  ap- 
propriations already  made  by  Congress  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  to- 
day (June  30th),  is  §608,126,496;  and  for  the  coming  fiscal  year, 
1862-63,  the  appropriations  provided  for  in  bills  now  between  the 
two  Houses,  having  passed  one  or  the  other,  are  for  the  Army  alone 
$521,980,445,  or  at  the  rate  of  §820  a  man,  and  for  the  naval  service 
$42,427,771 — an  aggregate  of  §564,408,000  for  the  Army  and  Navy 
alone.  Adding  to  that  §1,818,000  for  the  Indian  Department,  you 
have  §560,227,000.  And  to  this  must  be  added  §28,318,000  in  bills 
already  become  laws  in  all,  the  sum  of  §594,543,000  for  the  next  fiscal 
year,  making  as  the  grand  aggregate  of  the  appropriations  already  pro- 
vided for  by  this  Congress  since  the  4th  of  July  last,  the  enormous 
sum  of  §1,104,976,881   66. 

I  proceed  next  to  ascertain  the  amount  of  authorized  indedted- 
NESS,  for  which  this  House,  the  Senate,  and  the  President  have  pledged 
the  faith  of  the  Government.  In  the  first  place,  the  appropriations,  as 
I  have  said,  amount  to  §581,526,000.  Deducting  from  that  the  esti- 
mated receipts,  adding  to  them  §9,000,000  for  error,  from  customs, 
lands,  and  all  other  ordinary  sources,  §46,000,000,  we  have  §535,526,- 
000.  But  this  does  not  include  the  §10,200,000  proposed  to  be  pledged 
by  this  bill  for  the  ship  canal  from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Mississippi 
River,  nor  the  §64,860,000  for  the  Pacific  railroad,  for  which  the  faith 
of  the  Government  is  now  pledged,  nor  the  §3,500,000  for  the  en- 
largement of  the  locks  of  the  Oswego  and  Erie  canal,  nor  the  §5,000,- 
000  for  the  ship  canal  around  the  falls  of  Niagara,  nor  the  other  one 
hundred  projects  of  disinterested  patriots  and  philanthropic  projectors 
in  this  House  and  outside  of  it,  for  augmenting  the  number,  and  ex- 
tending still  more  widely  the  circulation  of  the  "  legal  tender"  notes  of 
the  United  States. 


ON"   PUBLIC    DEBT,    ETC.  •  377 

There  is  yet  another  form  of  authorized  indebtedness — loans  and 
Treasury  notes.  By  the  act  of  July  17,  1861,  we  empowered  the  Sec- 
retary of  Treasury  to  contract  a  debt  of  $250,000,000  in  bonds,  at 
his  discretion.  By  the  act  of  the  25th  of  February,  1862,  $500,000,- 
000  more  in  bonds  were  authorized,  and  $100,000,000  in  Treasury 
notes;  and 'by  an  act  passed  a  day  or  two  subsequently,  $10,000,000, 
in  addition,  of  demand  notes ;  and  by  the  act  which  has  already  passed 
this  House,  is  now  pending  in  the  Senate,  and  will  probably  become  a 
law  in  a  few  days,  $150,000,000  more  of  "legal  tender,"  making  of 
authorized  indebtedness   in   these    two  forms    a   grand  aggregate   of 

$i,oio,ooo,oro. 

And  now,  sir,  for  the  purpose  of  arriving  at  a  fair  estimate  of  the 
daily  expenditures  of  the  Government,  I  propose  to  take  the  Army  as 
the  test  or  standard.  According  to  the  statement  of  the  AJjutant- 
General,  May  21,  1862,  furnished  to  the  chairman  of  the  Military  Com- 
mittee of  the  Senate,  and  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  in  Decem- 
ber la'-t,  the  number  of  men  in  the  regular  and  volunteer  forces  on  the 
21st  of  May  was  637,988,  divided  tlins  :  regulars,  20,834;  volunteers, 
617,654.  On  the  21st  of  May  there  were  in  these  two  arms  of  the 
military  service,  26  major-generals,  207  brigadier-generals,  1,200  staff- 
officers,  including  brigade  surgeons  and  additional  paymasters,  one  re- 
tired Lieutenant-General  drawing  whole  pav,  and  a  full  quota  of  officers 
attached  to  the  department  of  the  adjutant-general,  quartermaster, 
subsistence,  pay,  ordnance,  inspector-general,  and  medical  departments, 
and  the  corps  of  engineers  and  topographical  engineers. 

Now,  from  statements  made  up  at  the  pay  office,  I  present  here  a 
sum  total  for  pay  and  subsistence  alone,  including  forage  and  servants, 
of  the  regular  and  volunteer  army,  amounting  to  $17,290,916  72  a 
month,  being  at  the  rate  of  $207,491,000  a  year,  and  $576,363  a  day; 
and  this,  let  it  be  remembered,  for  pay  and  subsistence  alone.  What 
the  actual  amount  of  other  expenditures  for  the  Army  are  in  full,  it  is 
utterly  impossible  to  learn,  in  advance  of  actual  returns,  which  cannot 
be  had  for  some  months  to  come  ;  but  I  have  ascertained  the  proportion 
which  pay  and  subsistence  bear  to  the  other  expenses  in  time  of  peace, 
by  the  actual  expenditure  returned,  and  in  time  of  war,  by  estimate  for 
the  present  year,  and  I  find  it  to  be  exactly  two-fifths.  Assuming  that 
as  a  basis  of  calculation,  we  have  $518,745,500  a  year  as  the  total  ex- 
penses of  the  Army,  $3,000,000  less,  by  the  way,  than  the  appropria- 
tions already  made  for  the  coming  year,  being  at  the  rate  of  $43,228,- 
000  a  month,  and  $1,440,000  a  day. 

These  other  expenses,  sir,  include  cost  of  clothing,  camp  and  garrison 
equipage,  ordnance  and  medical  stores,  supplies,  purchase  of  cavalry 
and  artillery  horses  (to  be  replaced  at  least  once  in  four  months),  medi- 


378  vallandigham's  speeches. 

cal  and  hospital  department  (in  time  of  war  enormously  beyond  any 
thing  in  time  of  peace),  the  transportation  and  subsistence  of  prisoners 
of  war,  and  the  purchase  *of  arms,  ordnance  stores,  gunpowder,  and  lead, 
amounting  in  the  appropriations  already  made  for  the  current  fiscal  year 
to  $35,000,000,  or  not  far  from  the  sum  for  which  contracts  were  made 
by  authority  of  the  late  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Cameron.  But  above 
and  beyond  all  as  to  cost,  is  "  transportation"  (by  railroad,  steamboats, 
sailing  vessels,  and  wagon  trains),  including,  in  time  of  war  as  a  very 
heavy  item,  the  transportation  of  the  sick  and  wounded.  Now,  sir,  I 
submit  to  the  candid  judgment  of  the  House,  that  it  is  but  a  fair  and 
reasonable  estimate  to  say,  that  at  least  twenty  per  cent,  also  should  be 
added  to  the  aggregate  of  these  and  other  expenses,  not  including  pay 
and  •subsistence  of  the  Army,  for  additional  cost  and  waste,  and  wear 
and  tear,  or  destruction  or  capture  in  time  of  war.  Adding  this,  you 
have  a  total  expenditure  of  !5;580,996,400  a  year;  or  849,249,000  a 
month,  and  81,642,485  a  day,  for  the  Army  alone. 

To  this  I  add  now  the  expenditures  for  the  Navy.  Having  no  means 
of  actual  knowledge  of  the  amount,  I  apply  the  only  or  at  least  the  next 
best  test,  the  appropriations  for  the  current  fiscal  year,  amounting  at 
the  last  three  sessions  of  Congress  to  the  sum  of  $101,778,762  30. 
Adding  this  to  the  Army  expenditure,  you  have,  as  the  aggregate,  the 
sum  of  8682,775,162  30,  being  at  the  rate  of  856,897,930  per  month, 
and  81,896,598  per  day  for  the  entire  year  round.  Sir,  the  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Dawes]  was  right,  except  that,  tried  by  his 
own  standard,  his  "  disloyalty"  was  a  little  more  exaggerated  than  mine. 

So  much,  sir,  for  the  cost  of  the  Army  and  the  Navy. 

But  there  is  yet  another  army  :  the  horde  of  thieves  and  plunderers, 
less  numerous,  it  may  be,  but  more  formidable,  more  consuming  far  to 
the  Treasury  than  the  legions  of  tlie  brave  men  who  go  forth  baring 
their  bosoms  to  the  storm  of  battle.  These  are  the  cankers  of  troubled 
times  and  a  fierce  strife — 

"  A  pitchy  cloud 
Of  locusts  warping  on  the  eastern  winds." 

They  are  the  "  somebodies"  who,  with  the  aid  of  their  official  allies 
in  high  places,  have,  in  the  language  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachu- 
setts [Mr.  Dawes],  on  the  25th  of  April  last,  in  the  days  of  his  inno- 
cency  and  before  his  fall,  "  plundered  the  Treasury  well  nigh  in  that 
single  year,  the  first  year  of  a  Republican  Administration,  of  as  much 
as  the  entire  current  yearly  expenses  of  the  Government  during  that 
Administration  (Mr.  Buchanan's)  which  the  people  hurled  from  power 
because  of  its  corruption." 

And  there  is  yet  another  army,  sir,  to  be  paid  and  subsisted — an 
army  more  reputable  certainly  than  your  plunderers,  but  more  in  nam- 


ON   PUBLIC    DEBT,    ETC.  379 

bers  also  and  not  less  devastating  in  tlieir  march.  I  mean  the  host  of 
assessors  and  tax  gatherers  whom  you  are  to-day  enlisting  to  go  forth  into 
every  dwelling-house,  every  business  house,  upon  every  farm,  into  every 
city,  every  town,  every  village,  and  every  hamlet,  into  palace  and  hovel 
alike,  throughout  the  land,  carrying  anxiety  and  dismay  at  every  step. 

And  these  constitute  the  very  priesthood  of  that  accursed  Trinity  of 
War,  Taxation,  and  Emancipation,  before  whose  cruel  shrine  the 
gentleman  from  Maine  [Mr.  Pike]  bows  down  in  idolatrous  worship ;  a 
Trinity  compared  with  which  Juggernaut  is  merciful  and  the  Ganges 
humane;  a  Trinity  upon  whose  bloody  and  consuming  altar  the  fairest 
country  and  the  noblest  structure  of  government  the  world  ever  saw  is  . 
offered  up  day  by  day  as  a  sacrifice.* 

I  proceed  now,  sir,  to  the  question  of  the  actual  indebtedness  and 
liabilities  to-day.  On  the  4th  of  March,  1861,  the  public  debt  was 
$72,289,278  68.  On  the  28th  of  January,  1802,  that  debt,  according 
to  the  statement  of  the  Treasury  Department,  as  produced  here  by  the 
gentleman  from  New  York  [Mr.  Spaulding],  amounted  to  the  sum  of 
$306,764,613  34.  On  the  29th  of  May,  1862,  according  to  the  letter 
of  the  Secretary  of  Treasury,  the  debt  was  $491,445,984  11.  Deduct- 
ing the  $90,867,828  68  of  debt  to  July  1,  1861,  there  remains  the  sum 
of  $400,578,155  43  as  the  amount  of  debt  incurred  during  the  present 
fiscal  year  up  to  May  29th.  Thus,  the  increase  from  January  28,  1862, 
to  that  date — a  period  of  three  months — is  shown,  not  by  conjecture, 
but  by  the  record,  to  have  been  $184,681,370  77,  being  at  "the  rate  of 
$61,560,456  a  month,  and  $2,052,000  a  day,  or  very  nearly  the  exact 
sum  estimated  in  January  and  February,  in  debate  here  and  in  the  Scut 
ate,  as  the  average  daily  expenditure. 

And  now,  sir,  as  to  the  statement  or  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  submitted  on  the  4th  of  June,  as  a  sort  of  codicil  to  the 
speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  I  have  a  word  to  say.  On 
the  8th  of  January  I  offered  a  resolution  calling  on  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  for  a  statement  of  the  floating  debt.  It  was  adopted  ; 
and  after  three  weeks  incubation,  he  hatched  out  the  following  answer; 

"I  transmitted  without  delay  copies  of  this  resolution  to  the  heads  of  other  Exe- 
cutive Departments,  and  required  them  to  furnish  me  such  statements  as  would 
enable  me  to  furnish  the  information  desired.  As  soon  as  the  necessary  informa- 
tion shall  be  received,  the  result  will  be  transmitted  to  the  House." 

*  "  Our  duty  to-day  is  to  tax  and  fight.  Twin  brothers  of  great  power ;  to  them 
in  good  time  shall  be  added  a  third ;  and  whether  he  shall  be  of  Executive  parent- 
age, or  generated  in  Congress,  or  spring,  like  Minerva,  full  grown  from  the  head 
of  our  Army,  I  care  not.  Come  he  will,  and  his  name  shall  be  Emancipation. 
And  these  three — Tax,  Fight,  EiiANCiPATE — shall  be  the  Trinity  of  our  salvation. 
In  this  sign  we  shall  conquer." — Spesch  of  Mr.  Pike,  of  Maine,  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
scniatives,  Feb.  b,  l^&2:   Congressional  Globe, p.  Go8. 


380  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

Well,  sir,  inasmuch  as  the  result  has  never  been  transmitted  to  this 
Ilouse,  I  liave  a  right  to  assume  that  the  necessary  information  has 
never  been  obtained.  In  that  assumption  I  am  fuU}'^  sustained  by  the 
declaration  of  ihe  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  the  31st  of  May — two 
days  after  this  statement  was  made  out  —to  the  chairman  of  the  Finance 
Committee  in  the  Senate.  I  read  from  the  official  report  of  the  de- 
bates in  that  body : 

"  Mr.  Fessenden.  •  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  speaks  simply  of  what  appears 
on  the  books  of  his  oflBce.  I  know  it  from  his  own  mouth,  for  I  asked  this  ques- 
tion, '  IIow  much  is  our  indebtedness  ?'  He  gave  me  the  amount.  Said  I,  '  IIow 
much  is  the  unliquidated  floating  debt  7'  He  replied,  ^  IIow  should  I  know  ?  I  have 
no  means  of  LUing.^  " 

Sych,  sir,  was  the  declaration  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in 
reference  to  the  floating  debt  as  late  as  the  last  of  May ;  and  it  is  to  bo 
construed  as  a  part  of  his  letter  to  this  House. 

But  this  statement  is  not  the  public  debt  to  July  1,  1862.  Thirty- 
two  days'  expenditure  must  be  added  to  it,  which,  at  the  rate  of  Army 
and  Navy  expenditures  above,  would  make  $60,791,000,  or  assuming 
the  entire  daily  expenditure  at  $2,000,000  in  round  numbers,  then 
$64,000,000,  or  an  aggregate  of  $555,445,984   11. 

Again,  this  statement  purports  to  be  what  it  is  not — *'  the  public 
debt"  to  May  29,  1862.  It  is  only  the  funded  and  liquidated  debt, 
that  for  which  the  Government  has  executed  its  paper  in  due  form  of 
law.  It  is  that  which,  in  the  language  of  the  Senator  from  Maine,  ap- 
pears on  the  books  of  the  Treasury,  and  no  more. 

Again,  it  does  not  include  what  was  in  process  of  liquidation,  which 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  estimated,  as  stated  in  the  Senate  by  the 
Senator  from  New  York  [Mr.  Harris],  on  the  31st  of  May,  at 
$20,000,000. 

Again,  it  does  not  include  the  floating  and  unliquidated  debt,  the 
amount  of  which  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  declared  he  did  not 
know,  and  had  no  means  of  telling.  Have  we  no  means  of  conjecture  ? 
Let  us  see. 

On  the  28th  day  of  January  last,  the  gentleman  from  New  York 
[Mr.  Spaulding]  said  : 

"  There  are  now  over  one  hundred  million  dollars  of  accrued  indebtedness,  in 
different  forms,  that  should  be  paid  at  an  early  day." — Congressional  Globe,  p.  523. 

On  the  6th  of  February  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  said : 

"  There  is  now  a  floating  debt,  audited  and  unaudited,  of  at  least  one  hundred 
ond  eighty  million  dollars." 

And  the  gentleman  from  New  York  [Mr.  Roscoe  Conkling],  on  the 
same  day,  estimated  it  at  $200,000,000.     I  need  here  but  barely  to 


OlSr   PUBLIC   DEBT,     ETC.  381 

allude  to  the  declaration  of  the  Senator  from  Iowa,  [Mr.  Grimes,]  on 
the  31st  of  May  : 

"  That  there  was  none  of  U3  who  knew  any  thing  about  it,  and  that  no  man 
could  compute  it." 

Sir,  this  floating  or  unliquidated  debt  is  made  up  of  all  the  liabilities 
or  obligations  of  every  kind  against  the  Government,  for  which  it  has 
not  executed  its  public  Government  paper  in  some  form  or  other.  It  is 
in  the  nature  of  book  account,  but  very  much  broader.  And  just  here 
let  me  say  that  with  quite  as  much  fairness  and  honesty  'mitrht  some 
merchant  doing  an  immense  and  widely  extended  business  undertake, 
when  charged  with  impending  bankruptcy,  to  prove  his  solvency  and 
show  the  amount  of  bis  indebtedness  by  producing  a  memorandum  of 
promissory  notes  issued  or  bonds  executed  by  him,  as  the  Secetary  of 
the  Treasury  to  palm  ofl"  upon  the  country  a  table  or  statement  of  the 
funded  debt  as  a  full  or  fair  exhibit  of  the  indebtedness  and  liabilities 
of  the  Government. 

The  floating  debt  includes  the  unsettled  accounts  for  the  pay  and 
subsistence  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  for  arms,  ordnance,  ammunition, 
military  stores,  medical  stores,  transportation,  and  whatever  else  enters 
into  the  province  of  the  Paymaster-General  or  the  Quartermaster-Gen- 
eral. So,  too,  it  includes  all  the  unsettled  accounts  of  the  Navy  De- 
partment— a  Department  having  the  care  of  'a  Navy  of  some  fifteen 
hundred  vessels,  or  more,  from  the  largest  and  noblest  steam  frigate 
down  to  the  humblest  transport ;  one  half,  or  more,  of  them  hired  at 
from  fifty  dollars  to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  day  ;  and  covering 
a  sea  and  river  coast  of  nearly  four  thousand  miles  in  extent. 

Sir,  the  Secretary  does  not  pretend  to  include  any  part  of  these 
liabilities  in  his  statement ;  and  yet,  in  two  months,  for  the  Army  and 
Navy  alone,  they  would  amount  to  $113,795,000.  But  if  only  the 
pay  and  subsistence  accounts  were  in  arrear,  the  amount  would  be 
$34,581,832.  But  the  two  months  not  included,  were  the  months  of 
March  and  April,  in  which  a  large  part  of  the  Army  of  the  Mississippi 
valley  was  transported  southward  into  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  and 
the  entire  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  carried  by  an  immense  fleet  of 
transports — and  these  are  still  in  the  service — from  opposite  Washing- 
ton to  the  peninsula  between  the  York  and  James  Rivers.  Now,  it 
does  seem  to  me  that  I  fix  a  most  moderate  estimate — I  should  be  olad, 
as  a  tax-payer  and  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  to  find  that  I  have 
over-estimated  it — when  I  assume  the  floating  debt  to  be  $140,000,000, 
or  half  way  between  the  estimate  in  January  of  the  gentleman  from 
New  York  [Mr.  Spaulding]  and  that  of  the  chairman  of  the  Committee 
of  Ways  and  Means. 


382  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

"  Again,  the  statement  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  does  not 
inchide  the  balance  due  to  the  States  for  advances.  We  have  already 
appropriated  §25,000,000  for  that  purpose,  and  accounts  to  the  extent 
of  |ilo,000,OOU  have  been  presented  at  the  Treasury  Department ;  and 
it  is  there  estimated  that  the  sum  total  will  reach  from  twenty  to 
twenty-five  million  dollars.  Estimating  it  at  $22,000,000,  and  deduct- 
ing the  $7,500,000  already  paid,  there  remain  $14,500,000  yet  to  be 
paid. 

Again,  it  does  not  include  bounties  already  d.ue,  and  for  the  payment 
of  which  a  bill  appropriating  $5,028,000  has  passed  this  House,  and  is 
now  in  the  Senate ;  nor  does  it  include  pensions  already  due,  not  less 
than  $4,000,000  in  amount. 

Again,  it  docs  not  include  the  unpaid  interest  on  the  public  debt  up 
to  July  1,  18G2,  the  amount  of  which  I  am  only  able  to  conjecture  from 
the  estimates  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  the  appropriations. 
Assuming  these  as  tests,  I  place  it  at  $14,000,000. 

Again,  it  does  not  include  the  liability  incurred  by  the  passage  of 
the  Pacific  railroad  bill,  estimated  by  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania 
[Mr.  Campbell]  at  $64,800,000.  Nor  does  it  include  the  liability 
assumed  by  the  enlistment  act  of  July  1861,  for  bounties,  $56,700,000. 
These,  indeed,  are  not  yet  payable ;  but  tlie  liability  is  absolute,  and 
must  continually  increa"5e  with  new  enlistments. 

Sir,  I  may  say  nothing  here  of  the  cost  assumed  by  the  pledge  given 
by  Congress  and  the  Executive,  to  pay  for  the  slaves  of  loyal  citizens 
in  the  border  slave  States,  equal,  at  the  rate  fixed  for  the  District  of 
Columbia,  an  average  of  $300  for  each  slave,  to  $1,000,000,000.  I 
pass  it  wholly  by  in  the  reckoning,  because,  in  my  deliberate  judgment 
the  States  and  the  people,  North  and  South — for  the  West  I  speak  con- 
fidently— will  indignantly  repudiate  and  rebuke  both  the  pledge  and 
its  authors. 

Again,  this  statement  does  not  include  claims  for  damages — actual, 
not  speculative— for  property  of  loyal  citizens  taken  and  destroyed  by 
Federal  authority.  Of  course  it  would  be  but  the  merest  conjecture  to 
estimate  the  amount,  but  assuming  the  lowest  conceivable  limit,  I  put 
it  down  at  $50,000,000. 

Again,  it  does  not  include  the  expenses  of  collecting  the  internal  tax. 
By  the  act  of  August,  1861,  the  States  that  should  assume  the 
collection  of  the  direct  tax  were  allowed  fifteen  per  cent.  It  would  be 
fair,  in  my  judgment,  to  set  down  the  cost  of  collection,  under  the 
bill  we  have  just  passed,  at  twenty  per  cent. ;  but  that  I  may  allow  no 
possible  room  for  cavil,  I  estimate  it  at  only  ten  per  cent.  ;  whichi 
assuminff   the  amount   of  tax  collected    under   both   tax  bills    to   bo 


01^   PUBLIC    DEBT,    ETC.  383 

$113,925,000,    the    estimate    of  the   gentleman  from   Vermont    [Mr. 
Morrill]  would  give  the  sum  of  811,392,000. 

And  now,  sir,  so  far  further  as  this  statement  is  to  be  regarded,  and 
for  tliat  purpose  it  was  put  forth  as  a  test  of  expenditures,  these  items 
also  must  he  added : 

1.  Receipts  from  customs,  lands,  and  other  ordinary  sources,  esti- 
mated hy  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  December,  at  836,809,731 
24,  but  which  he  has  shown  in  his  letter  of  the  11th  of  June  to  this 
House,  to  liave  reached  in  the  month  of  May  the  sum  of  86,900,000, 
at  the  rate  of  $82,000,000  a  year,  or  nearly  150,000,000  more  than  his 
estimate.      I  assume  them  to  be  $46,000,000. 

2.  The  actual  receipts  of  the  Post-Office  Department,  which,  if  a 
statement  made  the  other  day  by  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
the  Post-OiBce  and  Post-Roads  [Mr.  Colfax]  be  correct,  I  may  fairly 
set  down  at  $8,000,000.  To  this  also  must  be  added,  what  I  am 
unable  to  estimate,  the  amount  of  the  direct  tax  which  the  States  have 
already  paid  into  the  Treasury.  Pennsylvania,  I  understand,  has  paid; 
so  has  Maryland  ;  and  Ohio  also,  in  part  at  least. 

I  present   now,  sir,  in   conclusion,  the  following  summary  of  debt, 

expenditure,  and  liabilities  to  July  1,  1862  : 

To  May  29,  1862 $491,445,984  11 

Add  thirty-two  days  to  July  1,  at  $2,000,000  a  day. . ." 64,000,000  00 

"  la  process  of  liquidation,"  May  29 20,000,000  00 

Floating  debt,  deducting  preceding  item 120,000,000  00 

Balance  due  the  States  for  advances 14,500,000  00 

Bounties  already  payable 5,028,000  00 

Pensions  already  payable 4,000,000  00 

Interest  on  public  debt  to  July  1,  1862 14,000,000  00 

Aggregate  of  certain  and  fixed  items 732,473,984  11 

Add  for  liability  incurred  by  Pacific  railroad  bill 64,800,000  00 

For  bounties  pledged  by  the  enlistment  act  of  July,  1861,  but  not 

yet  payable 56,700,000  00 

For  expenses  of  collecting  internal  taxes 11,392,500  00 

Total  actual    debt  and    absolute  liabilities    already  accrued   or 

assumed 865,366,484  11 

Add  liability  for  pensions  to  or  on  behalf  of  aU  who  may  be  in- 
jured or  die  in  battle  or  by  sickness  in  the  service — estimated.       10,000,000  00 

For  contingencies  and  for  claims  for  damages  to  loyal  citizens  for 
property  taken  or  destroyed  by  authority  of  the  United 
States 50,000,000  00 

Total  of  actual  and  absolute  and  contingent  liabilities 925,366,484  II 

Deducting  from  this  the  debt  to  March  4,  1861 72,289,278  68 


There  remain 853,077,205  43 


38-4  yallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

Add  receipts  from  customs,  lands,  and  other  ordinary  sources, 

from  March  1,  1861,  to  July  1,  1802 $49,390,424  00 

From  Post  Ollice  Department  within  same  period 1(1,087. 3J4  00 

Grand  aggregate  of  actual  debt  and  expenditures  and  absolute 
and  contingent  liabilities,  chargeable   to  this  Administration 

during  the  tirst  fifteen  months  of  its  existence $912,560,953  43 

Being  at  the  rate  of  for  every  month,  $00,837,330. 
For  every  day,  $2,027,911. 

And  yet,  according  to  the  Senator  from  Iowa  [Mr.  Grimes],  this  is 
not  the  full  amount  by  perhaps  §100,000,000;  and,  indeed,  is  some 
six  hundred  million  dollars  less  than  his  own  actual  but  loose  estimate 

Such  is  the  appalling  exhibit  of  the  debt,  li;ibility,  and  expenditures  of 
tliis  Government  within  the  past  fifteen  months;  and  now,  sir,  I 
submit,  in  view  of  all  these  thing-;,  that  it  would  have  been  decent  and 
becoming  in  the  gentlemen  who  have  so  lavishly  bestowed  their  censure 
upon  others,  had  they  been  content  to  expo.se  error,  if  error  there  had 
been,  without  imputation,  or  unfairness  and  dishonesty,  and,  above  all, 
without  insinuations  of  disloyalty  to  the  Government  under  which  we 
were  born,  and  to  the  preservation  of  which,  unimpaired,  just  as  we 
received  it  from  our  fathers,  we  are  committed  unalterably  by  every  tie 
of  birth,  and  kindred,  and  language,  by  every  obligation  of  allegiance 
and  of  honor,  and  by  every  sentiment  and  sympathy  of  our  hearts. 

Sir,  I  put  these  facts  and  figures  upon  record  for  no  present  partisan 
purpose,  but  that  they  may  remain  and  abide  the  test  of  the  future, 
when  conjecture  sliall  have  become  certainty,  and  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment have  been  obliged  to  yield  up  the  secrets  of  its  prison-house. 


'        COLUMBUS  DEMOCRATIC  COXVEXTION. 

Speech  before  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  July  4,  1862.* 

Mr.  Prf.sidext  and  Fellow-Democrats  of  the  State  of  Ohio  :  I 
am  obliged  again  to  regret  that  the  lateness  of  the  hour  precludes  me 

*  The  Convention  that  met  in  Columbus,  on  the  4rth  of  July,  1S62,  was  one  of 
the  largest,  most  enthusiastic,  and  harmonious  ever  convened  in  Ohio.  It  assem- 
bled on  the  east  side  of  the  State  House.  Governor  Medary  was  elected  President. 
Its  immediate  object  was  to  nominate  candidates  for  State  ofTicers.  These  were 
soon  agreed  upon,  in  every  case  unanimously.  A  series  of  resolutions  were 
then  read  and  adapted,  when  loud  and  continued  calls  were  made  for  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham,  who.  having  ascended  the  platform,  was  greeted  with  rapturous  applause. 
He  spoke  as  above. 


COLUMBUS    DEMOCKAtiC    CONVETirriOI^.  385 

from  addressing  you  either  in  the  manner  or  upon  the  paiticular  sub- 
jects which  otlierwise  I  should  prefer.  This  is  my  misfortune  again  to- 
day, as  last  niglit;  but  speaking  thus,  without  premeditHtion,  and  upon 
such  matters  chiefly  as  may  occur  to  me  at  the  monient,  if  I  should 
happen  to  get  fairly  under  headway,  it  may  turn  out  to  be  your  mis- 
fortune. (Laughter.)  I  congratulate  the  Democracy  of  Ohio,  that,  in 
the  midst  of  great  public  trial  and  calamity,  of  persecutii)ii  f  )r  devotion 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  fathers  who  laid  deep  and  strong  the  foundations 
of  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  under  whiih  this  country  has  grown 
great  and  been  prosperous — the  fathers,  by  whose  principles,  one  and 
all,  the  party  to  which  we  are  proud  to  belong  has  always  been  guided 
— to-dav  we  have  assembled  in  numbers  fjruater  than  at  anv  former 
convention  in  Ohio.  I  congratuLite  you  that,  despite  the  threats 
which  have  been  uttered,  and  the  denunciations  which  have  been 
poured  out  upon  that  time-honored  and  most  patriotic  organization,, 
peaceably  and  in  quiet,  with  enthusiasm  and  earnestness  of  purpose,  we 
are  here  met;  and,  in  harmony,  which  is  the  secret  of  strcn-^th  and  the 
harbinger  of  success,  have  discharged  the  duties  for  which  we  were 
called  together.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was  questionable  if,  in  free 
America — in  the  United  States,  boasting  of  their  liberties  for  more 
than  eighty  years — a  party  to  which  this  country  is  indebted  for  most 
that  is  great,  grand,  and  glorious — would  have  been  permitted  peace- 
ably to  assemble  to  exercise  its  political  rights,  and  peiform  its  appro- 
priate functions.  Threats  have  even  been  made,  in  times  more  recent, 
that  this  njost  essential  of  all  political  rights,  secured  to  us  by  the  pre- 
cious blood  of  our  fathers,  in  a  seven  years'  revolutionary  war,  should 
no  longer  be  enjoyed.  The  Democrats  of  our  noble  sister  State  of 
Indiana,  second-born  daughter  of  the  Northwest,  have  been  menaced, 
within  the  last  ten  days,  with  a  military  organization  and  the  bayonet, 
to  put  down  their  party.  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  telegraphic  dispatch 
from  the  capital  of  that  State,  boasting  of  this  infamous  purpose.  I 
will  read  it,  gentlemen,  because  I  know  that  the  same  dastardly  men- 
aces have  been  proclaimed  against  the  Democrats  of  Ohio,  and  because 
I  am  here  to-day  to  rebuke  them,  as  becomes  a  freeborn  man  who  is 
resolved  to  perish — ^ — (Great  applause,  in  the  mid^t  of  which  the  rest 
of  the  sentence  was  lost.) 

Some  months  ago,  a  Democratic  State  Convention  was  held  in  Indi- 
ana. It  was  a  Convention  of  the  party  founded  by  Thomas  Jefferson, 
built  up  by  Madison  and  Monroe,  and  consolidated  by  Andrew  Jack- 
son (applause) — a  parry  under  whose  principles  and  policy,  from  thir- 
teen States,  we  have  grown  to  thirty -four,  fur  thirty-four  there  were, 
true  and  loyal  to  this  Union,  before  the  Presidential  election  of  1860 
— a  party  under  whose  wise  and  liberal  policy  the  course  of  empire 
25 


386  vallandigham's  speeches. 

westward  did  take  its  way,  until  the  symbol  of  American  power — the 
stars  and  stripes — waved  proudly  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  over 
the  broadili  of  a  whole  continent — a  party  which,  by  peace  and  com- 
promise, and  through  harmony,  wisdom,  and  sound  policy,  brought  us 
up  from  feeble  and  impoverished  colonies,  struggling  in  the  midst  of 
defeat  and  disaster  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  to  a  mighty  empire, 
foremost  among  the  poAvers  qf  the  earth,  the  foundations  of  whose 
greatness  were  laid,  broad  and  firm,  in  that  noble  Constitution,  and 
that  grand  old  Union  which  the  Democratic  party  has  ever  maintained 
and  defended.  The  Democratic  party,  with  such  principles,  and  such 
a  history  and  record  to  point  to,  held  a  State  Convention,  in  pursuance 
of  its  usages  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  under  the  rights  secured 
by  a  State  and  Federal  Constitution,  older  still,  in  the  capital  of  the 
State  of  Indiana.  And  yet,  referring  to  this  party  and  its  Convention, 
the  correspondent  of  a  disloyal  and  pestilent,  but  influential  newspaper, 
in  the  chief  city  of  Ohio,  dared  to  send  over  the  telegraphic  wires, 
wires  wholly  under  the  military  control  of  the  Administration,  which 
permits  nothing  to  be  transmitted  not  acceptable  to  its  censors,  a  dis- 
patch in  these  words : 

"  The  fellows  are  frightened,  evidently  not  without  cause." 

Well,  gentlemen,  I  know  not  how  far  Democrats  of  Indiana  may  be 
frightened — and  a  nobler  and  more  fearless  body  of  men  never  lived — 
but  I  see  thousands  of  Democrats  before  me,  to  whom  fear  and  reproach 
are  alike  unknown.  Frightened  at  what  ?  Frightened  by  whom  ?  We 
are  made  of  sterner  stuff. 

"  The  militia  of  the  State,"  he  adds,  "  will,  probably,  be  put  upon  a  war  footing 
very  shortly." 

And  who,  T  pra}^  are  the  militia  of  the  State  ?  They  are  not  made 
up  of  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party  in  Indiana  or  Ohio,  I  know. 
I  never  knew  that  sort  of  politicians  to  go  into  any  such  organization, 
in  pesce  or  in  war.  No  men  have  ever  been  more  bitter  and  unrelent- 
ing in  their  opposition  to,  and  ridicule  o^  the  militia,  and  none  know 
it  better  than  I — as  my  friend  before  me,  by  his  smile,  reminds  me, 
that  one  of  ray  own  offences  is  that  I  am  a  militia  brigadier  in  favor  of 
the  next  foreign  war. 

But  who  are  the  militia?  They  are  the  freeborn,  strong-armed,  stout- 
hearted Democrats  of  Indiana,  as  they  are  of  Ohio.  Let  them  be  put 
on  a  war  footing.  Good  !  We  have  hosts  of  them  in  the  armv  al- 
ready,  and  on  a  war  footing,  but  who  are  as  sound  Democrats  and  as 
much  devoted  to  the  principles  of  the  party,  as  they  were  the  hour 
they  enlisted.     They  have  been  in  the  South,  and  I  have  the  authority 


COLUMBUS    DEMOCRATIC    COlS^ENTIOI^r.  387 

of  hundreds  of  officers  and  privates  in  that  gallant  army  for  saying, 
that  not  only  are  the  original  Democrats  in  it  more  devoted  to  the 
partv  to-day  than  ever  before,  but  that  hundreds,  also,  who  went 
hence  Republicans,  have  returned,  or  will  return,  cured  of  the  disease. 
(Laughter  and  applause.)  Sir,  the  array  is,  fortunately,  most  fortunate- 
ly for  the  country,  turning  out  to  be  a  sort  of  political  hospital  or  sani- 
tary institution,  and  I  only  regret  that  there  are  not  many  more  Repub- 
lican patients  in  it.     (Laughter.) 

Well,  put  the  militia  upon  a  war  footing.  Put  arms  in  their  hands. 
They  never  can  be  made  the  butchers  or  jailers  of  their  fellow-citizens, 
but  the  guardians  rather  of  free  speech  and  a  free  press,  and  of  the 
ballot-box.  Standing  armies  of  mercenaries,  not  the  militia  of  a  coun- 
try, are  the  customary  instruments  of  tyranny  and  usurpation. 

But  this  correspondent  proceeds  : 

"  If  the  sympathizers  with  treason  and  traitors" — 

We  sympathize  with  treason  and  traitors  !  We,  who  have  stood  by 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union  from  the  organization  of  the  party, 
in  our  fathers'  day,  and  in  our  own  day,  in  every  hour  of  trial,  in  peace 
and  in  war,  in  victory  and  in  defeat,  amid  disaster,  and  when  prosperity 
beamed  upon  us — 'we  to  be  branded  as  enemies  to  our  country,  by 
those  whose  traitor  fathers  burned  blue  lights  as  signals  for  a  foreign 
foe,  or  met  in  Hartford  Convention  to  plot  treason  and  disunion  fifty 
years  ago  !  We  false  to  the  Constitution  and  to  our  Government,  the 
bones  of  whose  fathers  lie  buried  on  every  battle-field  of  the  war  of 
1812,  from  the  massacre  at  the  River  Raisin  to  the  splendid  victory  at 
New  Orleans ;  we,  who  bore  aloft  the  proud  banner  of  the  Republic, 
and.  planted  it  in  triumph  upoT>  the  palace  of  the  Montezumas ;  we,  by 
■whose  wisdom  in  council,  and  courage  in  the  field,  for  seventy  years, 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union,  and  the  country  which  has  grown  great 
under  them,  have  been  preserved  and  defended  ;  we  to  be  denounced 
as  sympathizing  with  treason  and  traitors,  by  the  men  who,  for  twenty 
years,  have  labored  day  and  night  for  the  success  of  those  principles 
and  of  that  policy  and  that  party  which  are  now  destroying  the  grandest 
Union,  the  noblest  Constitution,  and  the  fairest  country,  on  the  globe  ! 
Talk  to  me  about  sympathizing  with  disunion,  with  treason,  and  with 
traitors  !  I  tell,  you,  men  of  OLio,  that  in  six  months,  in  three  months, 
in  six  weeks  it  may  be,  sooner  or  later,  but  sometime,  these  very  men, 
and  their  masters  in  Washington,  whose  bidding  they  do,  will  be  the 
advocates  of  the  eternal  dissolution  of  this  Union,  and  denounce  all 
who  oppose  it  as  enemies  to  the  peace  of  the  country.  Foreign  inter- 
vention and  the  repeated  and  most  serious  disasters  which  have  lately 
befallen  our  arms,  will  speedily  force  the  issue  of  separation  and  South- 
ern independence — disunion — or  of  Union   by  negotiation  and  oom- 


8S8  vallandigham's  speeches. 

promise.  Between  these  two  I  am — and  I  here  publicly  proclaim  it — 
for  the  Union,  the  whole  Union,  an<i  nothinfr  less,  if,  by  any  possibility, 
I  can  have  it ;  if  not,  then  for  so  much  of  it  as  can  yet  be  rescued  and 
preserved;  and  in  any  event,  and  und.  r  all  circumstances,  for  tlie  Union 
which  God  ordained,  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  all' which  may  cling 
to  it,  under  the  old  name,  the  old  Constitution,  and  the  old  flag,  with 
all  their  precious  memories,  with  the  battle-fields  of  the  past,  and  the 
songs  and  the  proud  history  of  the  past — with  the  birth-place  and  the 
burial-place  of  Washington  the  found '•r  and  Jackson  the  preserver  of 
the  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  of  the  Union  as  it  was.  (Great  applause). 
But  this  correspondent  again  proceeds: 

"If  the  sympathizers  with  treason  and  traitors  meditate  to  carry  out  their 
plana  in  this  quarter" — 

What  plans  ?  Just  such  as  to-day  have  been  the  business  of  this 
Convention  ;  the  plans  of  that  old  Union  party,  laying  down  a  plat- 
form, and  nomin{^ting  Democrats  to  fill  the  oflBces,  and  control  the 
policy  of  the  government,  to  the  end  that  the  Constitution  inav  be 
again  maintained,  the  Union  restored,  and  peace,  prosperity,  and  hap- 
piness, once  more  drop  healing  from  their  wings — 

"plans,"  the  fellow  proceeds,  "in  this  quarter,  they  will,  doubtless,  find  the  work 
quite  as  hot  as  they  bargained  for." 

And  I  tell  the  cowardly  miscreant  who  telegraphed  the  threat,  that  he, 
and  those  behind  him,  will  find  the  work  fifty-fold  hotter  when  they 
begin  it,  than  they  had  reckoned  on,  both  here  and  in  Indiana. 

"Ten  thousand  stand  of  arms,"  he  adds,  "have  been  ordered  for  the  State 
troops." 

For  what  ?  To  put  down  the  Democratic  party  ?  Sir,  that  is  a 
work  which  cannot  be  done  by  ten,  or  twenty,  or  fifty  thousand  stand 
of  arms  in  the  hands  of  any  such  dastards,  in  office  or  out  of  it.  If 
so  full  of  valor,  and  so  thirsty  for  blood,  let  them  enlist  under  the  call 
just  issued  for  troops  in  Ohio  and  Indiana.  Let  them  go  down  and 
fight  the  armies  of  the  "  rebels"  in  the  South,  and  let  Democrats  fight 
the  unarmed,  but  more  insidious  and  dangerous,  Abolition  rebels  of  the 
North  and  West,  through  the  ballot-box. 

Forty  thousand  additional  troops,  I  estimate  ijt,  are  called  for,  in  the 
proclamation  of  yesterday,  from  the  State  of  Ohio.  Where  are  the 
forty  thousand  Wide- Awakes  of  1860,  armed  with  their  portable  lamp- 
posts, and  drilled  to  the  music  of  the  Chicago  platform  ?  Sir.  I  pro- 
pose that  thirty-five  thousand  of  them  be  conscripted  forthwith. 
They  will  never  enlist ;  they  never  do.  They  are  "  Home  Guards" — 
men  who  stay  vigorously  at  home,  to  slander  and  abuse  and  threaten 


COLUMBUS    DEMOCRATIC    CON^VENTION.  389 

Democrats,  whose  fathers  or  brothers  or  sons  are  in  the  Union  armies, 
or  have  fallen  in  battle.  I  speak  general]}' — certainly  there  are  excep- 
tions. But  I  will  enffiio-e  that  if  the  records  of  the  old  Wide-Awake 
clubs,  in  the  several  cities  and  towns  of  Ohio,  shall  be  produced,  and 
the  Republicans  will  detail  or  draft  thirty-five  thousand  from  the  lists, 
I  will  find  five  thousand  strong-armed,  stout-hearted,  brave  and  loyal 
Democrats,  to  go  down  and  see  that  they  don't  run  away  at  the  first 
fire.     (Great  laughter.) 

Sympathizers  with  treason  and  traitors !  Secessionists  !  Sir,  it  is 
about  time  that  we  have  heard  the  last  of  this.  The  Democracy  of 
Ohio,  and  of  the  United  States,  are  resolved  that  an  end  shall  be  put 
to  this  sort  of  slander  and  abuse.  But  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss 
this  particular  subject  further  now.      ("Go  on,  go  on.") 

Well,  then,  from  that  which  concerns  the  Democratic  party,  to  a 
word,  a  single  word,  about  what  relates  to  myself;  and  I  beg  pardon 
for  the  digression.  I  am  rejoiced  that  it  has  been  permitted  to  me  to 
be  here  present,  to-day,  in  person  before  you.  Had  you  believed  the 
reports  of  the  Republican  press,  you  would,  no  doubt,  have  expected 
to  see,  probably,  the  most  extraordinary  compound  of  leprous  and  un- 
sightly flesh  and  blood  ever  exhibited.  (Laughter.)  Well,  my  friends, 
you  see  that  I  am  not  quite  "  monstrous,"  at  least,  bear  no  especial  re- 
semblance to  the  beast  of  the  Apocalypse,  either  in  heads  or  horns, 
but  am  a  man  of  like  fashion  with  yourselves.  To  the  Republican 
party  alone,  and  its  press  and  its  orators,  I  am  indebted,  no  doubt,  for 
a  large  part  of  the  "  curiosity"  which,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  I  seem  to 
have  excited,  and  which  has  brought  out  even  some  of  them,  as  if  to 
"  see  the  elephant."  They  have  never  meant  to  be  friendly  toward  me, 
I  know  ;  but  as  I  see  some  of  them  now  within  my  vision,  let  me 
whisper  in  their  ears,  that  I  never  had  better  friends,  and  no  man  had, 
since  the  world  began.  They  have  advertised  me  free  of  cost,  abso- 
lutely free  of  cost,  for  the  last  fifteen  months ;  yes,  I  may  say,  for 
some  five  years  past,  all  over  the  United  States.  Thus,  gentlemen,  I 
have  had  my  share  of  what  Jefferson  called  the  unction,  the  holy  oil, 
with  which  the  Democratic  priesthood  has  always  been  anointed — - 
slander,  detraction,  and  calumny,  without  stint.  Really,  I  am  not  sure 
that  with  me  it  has  not  reached  "  extreme  unction,"  though  I  am  by  no 
means  ready,  and  do  not  mean  to  depart  yet.  Well,  I  will  not  com- 
plain. It  has  cost  me  not  a  single  night's  loss  of  sleep,  from  the  be- 
ginning. My  appetite,  if  you  will  pardon  the  reference — if  you  will 
allow  me,  as  Lincoln  would  say,  to  "blab"  upon  so  delicate  a  subject — 
has  been  in  no  degree  impaired  by  it.  Others  before  me,  and  with  me, 
have  endured  the  same.  Here  is  my  excellent  friend  near  me  (Governor 
Medary).     0,  blessed  martyr !     (Great  applause.)     For  one-and-sixty 


390  VALLANDIG1IA3I  S   SPEECHES. 

years  the  storms  of  partisan  persecution  and  malignity,  in  every  form, 
have  beaten  upon  his  head ;  but  though  time  and  toil  have  made  it 
gray,  the  heart  beneath  beats  still,  to-day,  as  sound  and  true  to  its 
instincts  of  Democracy  and  patriotism,  and  of  humanity,  too,  as  when 
he  laid  his  first  offerings  upon  the  altar  of  his  country,  just  forty  years 
ago.  What  others  Lave  heroically  suffered  in  ages  past,  we,  too,  can 
endure. 

"We  are  all,  indeed,  still  in  the  midst  of  trials.  Here,  before  me,  is 
the  gentleman  of  whom  I  have  just  spoken,  whom  you  have  honored 
with  the  presidency  of  this  noble  Convention,  for  forty  years  a  Demo- 
cratic editor — for  forty  years  devoted  to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union 
of  these  States — a  man  who,  through  evil  and  through  good  report, 
has  adhered,  with  the  faith  of  a  devotee  and  the  firmness  of  a  martyr, 
to  the  principles  and  policy  of  that  grand  old  party  of  the  Union  ; 
and  now  that  the  frosts  of  threescore  years  have  descended  and 
whitened  his  head — he,  I  say,  has  lived  to  see  the  paper,  to  which  he 
gives  the  labor  and  the  wisdom  of  his  declining  years,  prohibited  from 
circulation  through  a  part  of  the  mails  as  "  disloyal"  to  the  govern- 
ment !  (Cries  of  "  No,  no,  shame  !'")  Samuel  Medary  disloyal !  and 
Wendell  Phillips  a  patriot  1  Sir,  it  is  not  many  months  since,  that  in 
the  city  of  Washington,  in  that  magnificent  building,  erected  by  the 
charity  of  an  Englishman,  who  loved  America — I  would  there  were 
more  like  him — that  art  and  science  might  the  more  widely  flourish  in 
this  country— the  Smithsonian  Institute — Wendell  Phillips  addressed 
an  assemblaore  of  men  as  false  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  as 
himself.  Upon  the  platform  was  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, the  third  officer  in  the  government ;  by  his  side  the  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States  ;  and  between  these  two,  in  proportions 
long  drawn  out,  the  form  of  "  Honest  Old  Abraham  Lincoln."  Am  I 
mistaken,  and  was  it  at  another  and  earlier  abolition  lecture  by  that 
other  disunionist,  Horace  Greeley,  in  the  same  place — there  have  been 
many  of  them — that  Lincoln  attended  ?  The  Speaker  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent, I  know,  were  there  ;  and  with  these  two  or  three  witnesses  before 
him,  and  in  presence  of  the  priesthood  of  Abolitionism,  the  Sumners 
and  Wilsons,  the  Lovejoys  and  the  Wades  of  the  House  and  Senate, 
surrounded  by  these,  the  very  architects  of  disunion,  he  proclaimed 
that  "  for  nineteen  years  he  had  labored  to  take  nineteen  States  out  of 
the  Union."  And  yet,  this  most  spotted  traitor,  pleading  for  disunion, 
in  the  City  of  Washington,  where  women  are  arrested  for  the  wearing 
of  rod,  white,  and  blue  upon  their  bonnets,  and  babes  of  .eighteen 
months  are  dragsjed  from  the  little  willow  wagons,  drawn  by  their 
nurses,  because  certain  colors,  called  seditious,  are  found  upon  their 
swaddling-clothes !     The  next  day,  or  soon  after,  this  same  Wendell 


COLUMBUS    DEMOCRATIC    CONVENTION.  391 

Phillips  did  dine  with,  or  was  otherwise  entertained,  by  his  Excellency, 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  related  to  him  one  of  his 
choicest  anecdotes.  Yet  Democratic  editors,  Democratic  Senators  and 
Representatives,  and  those  holding  other  official  positions,  by  tiie  grace 
of  the  States  or  of  the  people,  are  "  traitors"  forsooth,  because  they 
would  adhere  to  the  principles  and  organization  of  their  noble  and 
patriotic  old  party  !  Such  are  some  of  the  exhibitions  wt\ich  Wash- 
ington has  witnessed  during  the  past  winter. 

Congress,  too,  has  been  in  session.  Sir,  I  saw  it  announced  in  one 
of  the  disloyal  papers  of  this  city  yesterday,  that  Jefferson  Davis,  and 
Toombs,  and  Yancey,  and  Rhett,  and  other  secessionists  of  the  South, 
would  derive  much  comfort  from  this  day's  meeting.  Well,  sir,  I  have 
just  come  from  a  body  of  men  which  I  would  not,  for  a  moment,  pre- 
tend to  compare  for  statesmanship,  respectability,  or  patriotism,  with 
this  Convention.  That  body  has  devoted  its  time  and  attention  to 
doing  more,  in  six  months,  for  the  cause  of  seccssionism,  than  Beaure- 
gard and  Lee  and  Johnston  and  all  the  Southern  generals  combined  have 
been  able  to  accomplish  in  one  year. 

Its  legislation  has  been  almost  wholly  for  the  "Almighty  African." 
From  the  prayer  in  the  morning — for,  gentlemen,  we  are  a  pious  body, 
we  are — making  long  faces,  and  sometimes  wry  faces,  too  (laughter), — 
we  open  with  prayer,  but  there  is  not  much  of  the  Almighty  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth  in  it — from  the  prayer  to  th(5  motion  to  adjourn,  it  is 
negro  in  every  shape  and  form  in  which  he  can,  by  any  possibility,  be 
served  up.  But  it  is  not  only  the  negro  inside  of  the  House  and  Sen- 
ate, but,  outside,  also.  The  city  of  Washington  has,  within  the  past 
three  weeks,  been  converted  into  one  universal  hospital ;  every  church, 
except  one  for  each  denomination,  has  been  seized  for  hospital  purposes. 
But  while  the  sanctuaries  of  the  Ever-living  God — the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob — not  the  new  god  of  the  Burlingames  and  Sum- 
ners  and  other  Abolitionists,  not  that  god  whose  gospel  is  written  in 
the  new  bible  of  Abolition — but  the  Ever-living  Jehovah  God,  have  been 
confiscated  for  hospitals,  every  theatre,  every  concert-saloon,  every 
other  place  of  amusement,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  from  the 
spacious  theatre  in  which  a  Forrest  exhibits  to  an  enraptured  audience 
his  graphic  renderings  of  the  immortal  creations  of  Shakspeare,  down 
to  the  basest  den  of  revelry  and  drunkenness,  is  open  still — ^just  as  in 
the  Inferno  of  the  great  Italian  poet,  it  is  said — 

"  The  gates  of  hell  stand  open  night  and  day." 

Sir,  if  these  places  of  amusement — innocent  some  of  them,  but  not 
holy,  certainly — had  first  been  seized  as  hospitals  for  the  comfort  and 
cure  of  the  thousands  of  brave  and  honest  men  who  went  forth  believ- 
ing in  their  hearts  that  they  were  to  battle  for  the  Constitution  and  the 


392  vallandigham's  speeches. 

Union,  but  who  now  lie  wasting  away  upon  their  lonely  pallets,  with 
no  wife,  (ir  si-tcr,  or  mother  there  to  soothe,  groaning  in  agony,  with 
every  description  of  wound  which  the  devilisli  ingenuity  of  man  can 
inflict  bv  weapons  whose  invention  would  seem  to  have  been  inspired 
by  the  very  spirit  of  the  author  of  all  human  woe  and  suffering — 
■wounds,  too,  rankling  and  festering  for  the  want  of  surgical  aid — if 
those  places,  I  say,  had  first  been  seized,  and  then  it  had  become  neces- 
sary, for  the  comfort  or  life  of  the  thousands  of  other  sick  and  wounded 
who  are  borne  into  the  city  every  day,  to  occupy  the  churches  of  Wash- 
ington, I  know  of  no  better  or  holier  purpose  to  which  they  could  have 
been  devoted.  And  now,  sir,  not  far  from  that  stately  Capitol,  within 
whose  maible  walls  Abolition  treason  now  runs  riot,  is  a  building, 
"Green's  Row''  by  name,  rented  by  the  Government,  in  which  one 
thousand  one  hundred  fugitive  slaves — "contrabands,"  in  the  precious 
slang  of  the  infamous  Butler — daily  receive  the  rations  of  the  soldier, 
which  are  paid  for  out  of  the  taxes  levied  upon  the  people.  One  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  a  day  are  taken  from  the  public  treasury  for  the 
support  of  fugitive  slaves  there  and  elsewhere ;  while  the  army  of 
Shields,  and  other  Union  armies  in  the  field,  even  so  late  as  six  weeks 
ago,  marched  barefoojed,  bareheaded,  and  in  their  drawers,  for  many 
"weary  miles,  without  so  much  as  a  cracker  or  a  crust  of  bread  with 
which  to  allay  thiir  hunger.  Ay,  sir,  while  many  a  gallant  young  sol- 
dier of  Ohio,  just  blooming  into  manhood,  who  heard  the  cry  that  went 
up  fifteen  months  ago,  "  Rally  to  defend  the  flag,  and  for  the  rescue 
of  the  Capital,"  and  went  forth  to  battle,  with  honesty  in  his  heart,  his 
life  in  his  hand,  with  courage  in  every  fibre,  and  patriotism  in  every 
vein,  lies  wan  and  sad  on  his  pallet  in  the  hospital,  vour  surgeons  are 
forced  to  divide  their  time  and  care  between  the  wounded  soldiers  and 
these  vagabond  fugitive  slaves,  who  have  been  seduced  or  forced  from 
the  service  of  their  masters.  These  things,  and  much  more — I  have 
told  you  not  a  tithe  of  all — are  done  in  Washington.  We  know  it 
there,  though  it  is  withheld  from  the  people;  and  while  every  falsehood 
which  the  ingenuity  of  man  can  invent  to  delude  and  deceive,  is  trans- 
mitted or  allowed  by  the  telegraphic  censors  of  the  Administration — 
themselves  usurpers  unknown  to  the  Constitution  and  laws — these  facts 
are  not  permitted  to  reach  the  people  of  the  United  States, 

Your  newspapers,  the  natural  watch-dogs  of  liberty,  are  threatened 
■with  suppression,  if  but  the  half  or  the  hundredth  part  of  the  truth  be 
told.  And  now,  too,  when  but  one  other  means  remains  for  the  redress 
of  this  and  the  hundred  other  political  grievances  under  which  the  land 
groans — party  organization  and  public  assemblages  of  the  people — even 
these,  too,  are  threatened  with  suppression  by  armed  force.  Ay,  sir, 
that  very  party,  which,  not  many  years  ago,  bore  upon  every  banner 


COLUMBUS    DEMOCEATIC    COXVEXTIOX.  393 

the  motto,  "  Free  Speech  and  a  Free  Press,"  now,  day  by  day,  foibids 
the  transmission  through  your  mails  of  the  papers  from  which  you 
derive  vour  knowledge  of  public  events,  and  which  advocate  the  prin- 
ciples vou  clierish.  And  Democratic  editors,  too,  are  seized,  "kid- 
napped," in  the  midnight  hour — torn  from  their  families — ^gagfjed — their 
wives  with  officers  over  them  menacing  violence  if  they  but  a-;k  one 
farewell  grasp  of  the  hand,  one  parting  kiss — thrust  into  a  close  car- 
riage, in  the  felon  hour  of  midnight,  and  with  violence  dragged  to  this 
capital,  and  here  forced  upon  an  express  train  an!  humed  off  to  a  mili- 
tary fortress  of  the  United  States.  Yes,  men  of  Ohio,  to  a  fortress  that 
bears  the  honored  name  of  that  first  martyr  to  American  liberty — the 
Warren  of  Banker  Hill;  or,  it  may  be,  to  that  other  Bastile,  desecrating 
that  other  name  sacred  in  American  history,  and  honored  throufjhout 
the  earth — tiie  name  of  that  man  who  forsook  home  and  gave  up  rank 
and  title,  and,  in  the  first  flush  of  youth  and  manhood,  came  to  our 
shores  and  linked  his  fortunes  with  the  American  cause — the  prisoner 
of  Ohnulz,  the  brave  and  gallant  Lafayette.  Ay,  freemen  of  the  West, 
fortresses  bearing  these  honored  names,  and  meant  for  the  defence  of 
the  country  atrainst  foreign  foes,  and  out  of  whose  casemates  bristle 
cannon  planted  to  hurl  death  and  destruction  at  armed  invaders,  echo 
now  with  the  groans  and  are  watered  by  the  tears — not  of  men  only 
from  States  seceded  and  in  rebellion,  or  captured  in  war,  but  from  the 
loyal  States  of  the  North  and  the  West,  and  from  that  party  which  has 
contributed  nearly  three-fouiihs  of  the  soldiers  in  the  field  today.  Are 
these  things  to  be  borne?  ("Never;  no,  never.")  If  you  have  the  spirit 
of  freemen  in  yon,  bear  them  not !  (Great  applause,  and  cries  of  "That's 
it,  that's  the  talk.'')  What  is  life  worth  ?  What  are  property  and  per- 
sonal lil)erty  and  political  liberty  worth ;  of  what  value  are  all  these 
things,  if  we,  born  of  an  ancestry  of  freemen,  boasting,  in  the  very  first 
hours  of  our  boyhood,  of  a  more  extended  liberty  than  was  ever  vouch- 
safed to  any  other  people,  are  to  fail  now  in  this  the  hour  of  sore  trial, 
to  demand  and  to  defend  them  at  every  hazard  ?  Freedom  of  the  press  ! 
Is  the  man  who  sits  in  the  White  House  at  Washington,  and  who  owes 
all  liis  power  to  the  press  and  the  ballot,  is  he  now  to  play  the  tyrant 
over  us  .•  ("  No  ;  nevt-r,  never  I")  Shall  the  man  who  sits  at  one  end  of 
a  telegraphic  wire  in  the  War  Department,  or  the  Department  of  State 
— a  mere  clerk,  it  may  be,  a  servant  of  servants — ?it  down,  and  by  one 
single  click  of  the  instrument,  order  some  minion  of  his,  a  thousand 
miles  off,  to  arrest  Samuel  Medarv,  or  Judge  Ranney,  or  Judge  Thur- 
man,  and  hurry  them  to  a  Bastile  ?  (*'  No  ;  it  can't  be  done  ;  we  will 
never  allow  it.")  The  Constitution  says :  "  No  man  shall  be  held  to 
answer  for  crime  except  on  due  process  of  law."  Our  fathers,  six  hun- 
dred years  ago,  assembled  upon  the  plains  of  Rannymede,  in  old  Eng- 


394  VALLA]SrDIGHA3l's   SPEECHES. 

land,  and  rescued  from  tyrant  hands,  by  arms  and  firm  resolve,  the 
God-given  right  to  be  free.  Our  fathers,  in  the  time  of  James  I.,  and 
of  Charles  I.,  and  James  II.,  cndiifed  trial  and  persecution  and  loss  of 
life  and  of  liberty,  rather  than  submit  to  oppression  and  wrong.  John 
Hampden — glorious  John  Hampden  !  the  first  gentleman  of  England — 
arrested  upon  an  illegal  executive  warrant — went  calmly  and  heroically 
to  the  cells  of  a  prison  rather  than  pay  twenty  shillings  of  an  illegally- 
assessed  tax,  laid  in  defiance  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  England, 
and  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  Englishmen.  And  all  history  is  full 
of  like  examples.  William  Tell  brooked  the  tyrant's  frown  in  his  day 
and  generation,  in  defence  of  these  same  rights,  in-the  noble  Republic 
of  the  Swiss;  and  that  gallant  little  people,  hemmed  in  among  the 
Alps,  though  surrounded  on  every  side  by  despots  whose  legions  num- 
bered more  than  the  whole  population  of  Switzerland,  have,  by  that 
same  indomitable  spirit  of  freedom,  maintained  their  rights,  their  liber- 
ties, and  their  independence,  to  this  hour.  And  arc  Arar-ricans  now  to 
oft'er  themselves  up  a  servile  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  arbitrary  power? 
Sir,  I  liavc  misread  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  the  temper  of  the  peo- 
ple, if  there  is  not  already  a  spirit  in  the  land  which  is  about  to  speak 
in  thunder-tones  to  those  who  stretch  forth  still  the  strong  arm  of  des- 
potic power — "Thus  far  shalt  thou  come,  and  no  farther.  AVe  made 
you ;  you  are  our  servants."  That,  sir,  was  the  language  which  I  was 
taught  to  apply  to  men  in  office  when  I  was  a  youth,  or  in  first  man- 
hood and  a  private  citizen,  and  afterward,  when  holding  office  as  the 
gift  of  the  people,  to  hear  applied  to  me ;  and  I  bore  the  title  proudly. 
And  I  asked  then,  as  I  ask  now,  no  other  or  better  reward  than,  "Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servant."  (Cries  of  "  You  shall  have  it ;  you 
deserve  it.")  But  to-day,  they  who  are  our  servants,  creatures  made 
out  of  nothing  by  the  power  uf  the  people,  whose  little  brief  authority 
was  breathed  into  their  nostrils  by  the  people,  would  now,  forsooth,  be- 
come the  masters  of  the  people ;  while  tlie  organs  and  instruments  of 
the  people — the  press  and  public  assemblages — are  to  be  suppressed ; 
and  the  Constitution,  with  its  right  of  petition,  and  of  due  process  of 
law,  and  trial  by  jury,  and  the  laws,  and  all  else  which  makes  life  worth 
possessing,  are  to  be  sacrificed  now  upon  the  tyrant's  plea  that  it  is 
necessary  to  save  the  Government,  the  Union.  Sir,  we  did  save  the 
Union  for  years — yes,  we  did.  We  were  the  "  Union-savers,"  not 
eighteen  months  ago.  Then  there  was  not  an  epithet  in  the  whole 
vocabulary  of  political  Billingsgate  so  opprobrious  in  the  eyes  of  a 
Republican,  when  applied 'to  the  Democratic  party,  as  "  Union-shriek- 
ers,"  or  "Union-savers."  I  remember,  in  my  own  city,  on  the  day  of 
the  Presidential  election,  in  1860 — I  remember  it  well,  for  I  had  that 
day  travelled  several  hundred  miles  to  vote  for  Stephen  A.  Douglas  for 


COLDMBUS    DEMOCKATIC    CONVENTION.  395 

the  Presidency — that,  in  a  ward  where  the  judges  of  election  were  all 
Democrats,  your  patriotic  Wide-A wakes,  strutting  in  unctuous  uniform, 
came  up,  hour  after  hour,  thrusting  their  Lincohi  tickets  twixt  thumb 
and  finger  at  the  judges,  with  the  taunt  and  sneer,  "  Save  the  Union! 
save   the 'Union P^      And  yet    now,  forsooth,  we  are  "traitors"  and 
"secessionists!"      And  old  gray-bearded  and  gray-headed  men,  who 
lived  and  voted  in  the  times  of  Jefferson  and  Madison  and  Monroe  and 
Jackson — men   who   have  fought  and   bled   upon  the  battle-field,  and 
who  fondly  indulged  the  delusion,  for  forty  years,  that  they  were  patri- 
ots, wake  up  suddenly  to-day  to  find  themselves  "  traitors  !  " — sneered 
at,  reviled  and  insulted  by  strijjlings  "whose  fathers  they  would  have 
disdained  to  have  set  with  the  dogs   of  their  flocks."     Of  all  these  . 
things  an  inquisition,  searching  and  terrible,  will  yet  be  made,  as  sure 
and  as  sudden,  too,  it  may  be,  as  the  day  of  judgment.     We  of  the 
loyal  States — we  of  the  loyal  party  of  the  country,  the  Democratic 
party — we,  the  loyal  citizens  of  the  United  States,  the  editors  of  loyal 
newsp.ipers — we,  who  gather  together  in  loyal  assemblages,  like  this, 
and  are  addressed  by  truly  loyal   and  Union  men,  as   I   know  you  are 
to-day  and  ai  this  moment  ("  That's  so  ;  that's  the  truth") — we,  forsooth, 
are  to  be  now  denied  our  privileges  and  our  rights  as  Americans  and  as 
freemen  ;  we  are  to  be  threatened  with  bayonets  at  the  ballot-box,  and 
bayonets  to  disperse  Democratic  meetings !     Again  I  ask,  why  do  they 
not  take  up  their  muskets  and   march   to   the   South,  and,  like  brave 
men,  meet  the  embattled   hosts  of  the  confederates  in  open  arms,  in- 
stead of  threatening,  craven-like,  to  fight  unarmed  Democrats  at  home 
— possibly  unarmed,  and  possibly  not  ?     (Laughter  and  applause,  and  a 
remark,  "  That  was  well  put  in.")     If  so  belligerent,  so  eager  to  shed 
that  last  drop  of  blood,  let  them  volunteer  to  re-enforce  the  broken  and 
shattered  columns  of  McClellan  in  front  of  Richmond,  sacrificed  as  he 
has  been  by  the  devilish   machinations  of  Abolition,  and   there  mingle 
their  blood  with  the  blood  of  the  thousands  who  have  already  perished 
on  those  fatal  battle-fields.     But  no ;  the  whistle  of  the  bullet  and  the 
song  of  the  shell  are  not  the  sort  of  music  to  fall  pleasantly  upon  the 
ears  of  this  Home-Guard  Republican  soldiery. 

With  reason,   therefore,  fellow-citizens,   I   congratulate   you  to-day 
upon  the  victory  which  you  have  achieved.     A  great  poet  has  said : 

"  Peace  hath  her  victories, 
No  less  renowned  than  war." 

Today  the  cause  of  free  government  has  triumphed.  A  victory  of  the 
Constitution,  a  victory  of  the  Union  has  been  won,  but  is  yet  to  be 
made  complete  by  the  men  who  go  forth  from  this,  the  first  political 
battle-field  of  the  campaign,  bearing  upon  their  banners  that  noble 


396  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

legend,  that  gi-and  inscription,  Tiik  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  the 
Union  as  it  was.  (Great  cheering.)  In  that  sign  shall  you  conquer. 
Let  it  be  inscribed  npon  every  ballot,  emblazoned  upon  every  banner, 
flung  abroad  to  every  breeze,  whispered  in  the  zephyr,  and  thundered 
in  the  tempest,  till  its  echoes  shall  rouse  the  fainting  spirit  of  every 
patriot  and  freeman  in  the  land.  It  is  the  creed  of  the  truly  loyal  De- 
mocracy of  the  United  States.  In  behalf  of  this  great  cause  it  is,  that 
we  are  now,  if  need  be,  to  do  and  to  suffer,  in  political  warfare,  what- 
ever may  be  demanded  of  freemen  who  know  their  rights,  and  know- 
ing, dare  maintain  them.  Is  there  any  one  man,  in  all  this  vast  assem- 
blage, afraid  to  meet  all  the  responsibilities  which  an  earnest  and  inex- 
orable discharge  of  duty  may  require  at  his  hands,  in  the  canvass  before 
us  ?  ("  No,  no,  not  one.")  If  but  one,  let  him  go  home,  and  hide  his 
head  for  very  shame : 

"Who  would  be  a  traitor  knave  ? 
"Who  would  fill  a  coward's  grave  ? 
Who  so  base  as  be  a  slave  ? 

Let  him  turn  and  flee." 

It  is  no  contest  of  arms  to  which  vou  are  invited.  Your  fathers, 
your  brothers,  your  sons,  are  already,  by  thousands  and  hundreds  of 
thousands,  on  the  battle-field.  To-day  their  bones  lie  bleaching  upon 
the  soil  of  every  Southern  State,  from  South  Carolina  to  Missouri.  It 
is  to  another  conflict,  men  of  Ohio,  that  you  are  summoned,  but  a  con- 
flict, nevertheless,  which  will  demand  of  you  some  portion,  at  least,  of 
that  same  determined  courage,  that  same  unconquerable'will,  that  same 
inexorable  spirit  of  endurance,  which  make  the  hero  upon  the  military 
battle-field.  I  liave  mistaken  the  temper  of  the  men  who  are  here  to- 
day, I  have  misread  the  firm  purpose  that  speaks  in  every  eye,  and 
beams  from  every  countenance,  which  stiftens  every  sinew,  and  throbs 
in  every  breast ;  I  have  misread  it  all,  if  you  are  not  resolved  to  go 
homo,  and  there  maintain,  at  all  hazards,  and  by  every  sacrifice,  the 
principles,  the  policy,  and  the  organization  of  that  party,  to  which 
again,  and  yet  again,  I  declare  unto  you,  this  government  and  country 
are  indebted  for  all  that  have  made  them  grand,  glorious,  and  great. 
(Cheers  and  great  applause.)* 

*  Mr.  Vallandigham's  reception  at  Columbus  was  one  of  the  proudest  and  most 
gratifying  that  could  have  been  given.  He  arrived  from  Washington  on  the  3d, 
and  about  midnight,  on  that  evening,  a  crowd  surrounded  his  hotel,  and  called  him 
out  for  a  speech.  And,  again,  on  the  evening  of  the  4th,  another  speech  was  de- 
manded and  given  from  the  balcony  of  the  hotel — three  speeches  within  twenty 
hours. 


STATE   OF   THE    COUTTTEY.  397 


STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 
Speech  delivered  at  Dayton,  August  2,  1862.* 

Mr.  Vallandigham  began  by  an, allusion  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
arranged  to  be  absent  from  the  city,'  on  a  visit  to  an  aged  and  very 
near  relative,  but  that,  meantime,  false  charges,  and  rumors  also  as  to 
intended  arrests,  were  started.  My  rule,  said  he,  is  always  to  meet 
such  things  a  little  more  than  half  way.  Conscious  of  rectitude,  I 
mean,  face  to  face  with  every  foe  and  every  danger,  to  do  all,  and  to 
bear  all,  that  may  become  a  man ;  and,  therefore,  at  much  inconve- 
nience, I  have  postponed  ray  vi<it,  and  am  here  to-night,  surrounded  by 
thousands  of  such  constituents  and  friends  as  no  man  ever  had. 

He  then  referred  to  the  spring  election,  and  its  result  in  this  city, 
upon  a  direct  issue  against  himself,  presented  to  and  accepted  by  his 
friends— the  triumphant  election  of  the  whole  Democratic  city  ticket; 
and  observed  that  the  lesson  to  our  enemies  was  a  severe  one,  and  that 
they  ought  to  learn  from  it  that  there  w^as  such  a  thing  as  abusing  a 
man  so  persistently,  wantonly,  and  wickedly,  as  to  make  him  im- 
mensely popular. 

Mr.  Y.  next  gave  a  full  and  minute  narrative  of  the  infamous  con- 
spiracy just  exploded,  to  procure  his  arrest  as  "  implicated"  with  two 
clerofvmen  from  the  "  Border  States,"  who  had  been  guests  at  his 
house.  Nothing  had  been  found  ;  both  of  them  were  promptly  re- 
leased, and  the  whole  plot  had  failed.  But  those  concerned  in  it,  some 
of  them  "  Christians,"  were  known,  and  would  be  remembered.  A 
telegraphic  dispatch  had  been  prepared  by  one  of  the  conspirators,  and 

*  The  reign  of  terror  was  at  its  height,  and  the  most  serious  apprehensions  were 
entertained  for  the  personal  safety  of  Mr.  Yallandigham,  when  he  announced  his 
determination  to  address  the  pubhc  in  Dayton.  As  the  hour  for  the  meeting  ap- 
proached, the  brave  and  true  men  of  Montgomery  and  adjacent*  counties  were 
seen  coming  in,  until  fully  seven  thousand  were  assembled  on  tne  south  side  of 
the  Court-House.  The  men  who  had  sworn  that  he  should  never  again  speak  in 
Dayton,  very  wisely  concluded  that  discretion  was  better  than  valor.  Of  this 
speech,  Grovemor  Medary,  republishing  it  in  The  Crisis,  said : 

"  It  sho\ild  be  read  by  everj  voter  in  the  United  States.  Nothing  equal  to  it  has 
been  made  during  the  past  few  years.  Seldom  has  it  ever  been  equalled  fdr  power, 
pathos,  purity  of  diction,  and  truthfulness  in  point  of  facts.  Elevated  in  tone, 
statesmanlike  in  conception,  it  thrills  the  reader  as  though  fresh  from  a  Roman 
Senate,  in  the  hour  of  Rome's  most  terrible  trials  for  freedom  and  existence.  It 
should  be  read  in  every  school-house,  to  the  assembled  people,  before  the  elections 
on  the  second  Tuesday  of  next  October." 

The  above  report  is  full  in' some  parts,  in  others  condensed. 


398  vallandigham's  speeches. 

« 

sent  off  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  from  Dayton,  though  dated  at  Co- 
lumbus, announcing  his  (Mr.  V.'s)  "arrest;"  and  it  had  never  been 
contradicted  to  this  day.*  Detnoc^-ats,  said  he,  have  never  received 
any  justice  at  the  hand  of  the  telegraph,  and  never  will,  till  after  the 
4th  of  March,  18G5,  when,  with  every  thing  else,  it  will  be  in  Demo- 
cratic hands.  The  Republican  jiarty  are  teaching  us  many  things,  and 
may  find  us  apt  scholars,  possibly  improving  on  their  lessons,  if  they 
shall  finally  succeed  in  overthrowing  all  constitution,  law  and  order. 
But  I  trust  that  it  will  never  come  to  this. 

I  am  for  obedience  to  all  laws  and  constitutions.  No  man  can  be  a 
good  democrat  who  is  not  in  favor  of  law  and  order.  No  matter  how 
distasteful  constitutions  and  laws  may  be,  they  must  be  obeyed.  I  am 
opposed  to  all  mobs,  and  opposed  also — inexorably  opposed,  above 
every  thing — to  all  violations  of  constitution  and'law  by  men  in  author- 
ity— public  servants.  The  danger  from  usurpations  and  violations  by 
them  is  fifty-fold  greater  than  from  any  other  quarter,  because  these 
violations  and  usurpations  come  clothed  with  the  false  semblance  of 
authority.  Those  parts  of  our  constitutions  and  laws  which  command 
or  restrain  the  people  must  be  obeyed ;  but  still  more  must  those  also 
which  limit  and  restrain  public  servants,  from  the  President  down.  There 
are  rights  of  the  people,  to  secure  which  constitutions  were  ordained, 
and  they  must  and  will  be  exacted  at  all  hazards;  and  among  the  most 
sacred  of  these  rights,  are  free  speech,  a  free  press,  public  assemblages, 
political  liberty,  and,  above  all,  or  at  least  at  the  foundation  of  all, 
PERSONAL  ijBERTY,  or  frccdom  from  illegal  and  arbitrary  arrests.  It 
was  a  right,  secured  in  Greece,  while  she  was  free,  and  in  Rome  in  her 
purer  days.  But  it  is  peculiarly  an  Anglo-Saxon  right;  and  it  has  cost 
more  struggles  in  England  to  hold  it  fast  than  any  other.  The  right  is 
declared,  in  the  strongest  langua'ge,  in  the  Great  Charter,  in  the 
time  of  King  John,  six  hundred  years  ago.  Here  is^the  pledge  wrung 
from  the  tyrant  by  men,  few  of  whom  could  read  or  write,  but  who  were 
resolved  to  be  free  : 

"No  freem.in  shall  be  arrested,  or  imprisoned,  or  disseized  (of  property),  or  out- 
lawed, or  banished,  or  mnj  ways  injured,  nor  will  we  pass  sentence  upon  liim,  nor 
send  trial  upon  him,  unless  by  the  legal  judgment  of  ms  peers,  or  by  the 

LAW  OF  the  land." 

This  is  the  "keystone  of  English  liberty,"  the  pride  and  boast  of 
every  Englishman.  The  violation  of  it  cost  one  English  monarch  his 
head,  another  his  crown,  and  a  third  his  most  valuable  colonies;  and 
to-day,  if  Queen  Victoria  were  to  attempt  to  suspend  it  by  telegraph, 

*  A  full  account  of  the  transaction  here  referred  to,  was  published  in  the 
Dayton  Empire,  Aug.  5,  1362. 


STATE    OF   THE    COUNTRY.  399 

or  bv  executiv^e  order,  or  order  of  privy  council  in  any  way,  she  would 
be  a  refugee  in  a  foreign  land  before  a  fortnight. 

Eifrhty  years  later,  this  sacred  and  invaluable  right  to  be  free  from 
arrest,  except  by  law,  was  confirmed  ;  and  in  1627,  by  the  celebrated 
Petition  of  Right,  drawn  up  by  that  great  lawyer,  Lord  Coke,  was  again 
confirmed  and  extended,  as  follows  : 

"  No  man,  of  what  estate  or  condition  that  he  be,  shall  be  put  out  of  his  land,  or 
tenements,  nor  arrested,  nor  imprisoned,  nor  disinherited,  nor  put  to  death,  with- 
out being  brought  to  answer  by  due  process  of  law." 

And  it  was  further  provided  that  no  commissioner  should  be  ap- 
pointed to  try  any  one  by  "  martial  law,"  who  was  not  in  the  army, 
"  lest  by  color  of  them,  any  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  be  destroyed,  or 
put  to  death,  contrary  to  the  laws  and  franchises  of  the  land." 

Next  can)e  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  of  1679,  to  secure  the  rights  as- 
serted by  the  Great  Charter  and  its  confirmations,  a  statute  by  virtue, 
of  which,  savs  Lord  Campbell — and  with  shame  I  confess  now  to  the" 
justice  of  the  proud  boast — "Personal  liberty  has  been  more  effectually 
guarded  in  England  than  it  has  in  any  country  in  the  world." 

Next  after  this  came  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  1689,  en"acted  by  the  pro- 
foundest  statesmen  and  wisest  patriots  which  England  ever  had.  These 
great  and  brave  men,  after  that,  by  arms,  they  had  driven  James  IL 
from  the  throne,  for  his  repeated  violations  of  the  rights  of  Englishmen, 
declaredthat  he  had  been  guilty  of  an  attempt  to  subvert  the  laws  and 
liberties  of  the  kingdom ;  among  other  things — 

"1.  By  assuming  and  exercising  a  power  of  dispensing  with  and  suspending  of 
laws  and  the  execution  of  laws,  without  consent  of  Parliament. 

"  2.  By  committing  and  prosecuting  divers  worthy  prelates,  for  humbly  petition- 
ing to  be  excused  from  concurring  to  the  said  assumed  power. 

"  7.  By  violating  the  freedom  of  election  of  members  to  serve  in  Parliament. 

"All  which,"  say  they,  "are  utterly  and  directly  contrary  to  the  known  laws 
and  statutes  and  freedom  of  this  realm." 

These,  sir,  are  the  "libertines  of  Englishmen."  They  are  the  liber- 
ties which  were  brought  over  by  our  ancestors  from  England,  and  em- 
bodied in  all  our  constitutions  and  laws.  In  1641,  twenty  years  after 
the  first  settlement  of  Massachusetts,  that  infant  colony  declared,  in  her 
"Bodv  of  Liberties,"  that 

"No  man's  life  shall  be  taken  away,  no  man's  honor  or  good  name  shall  be 
stained,  no  man's  person  shall  be  arrested,  restrained,  banished,  dismembered,  nor 
any  ways  punished,  no  man  shall  be  deprived  of  his  wife  or  children,  no  man's 
goods  or  estate  shall  be  taken  away  from  him,  nor  any  way  endamaged  under 
color  of  law  or  countenance  of  authority,  unless  it  be  by  virtue  or  equity  of  some 
express  law  of  the  country,  warranting  the  same,  etc. 


400  vallandiqham's  speeches, 

"  No  man's  person  shall  be  restrained  or  imprisoned  hy  any  au'hority  v:Tiat$o- 
ever,  before  the  law  hath  sentenced  him  thereto,  if  he  (;anj)ut  in  sufiQcient  security, 
bail,  or  mainprise,"  etc. 

« 

So,  also,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independcneo,  July  4th,  177G,  among 
the  many  grievances  set  forth  against  the  king,  arc  the  following : 

"He  has  affected  to  render  the  military  independent  of,  and  superior  to,  the 
civil  power: 

"  For  depriving  us,  in  many  cases,  of  the  benefits  of  trial  by  jury: 
"  For  transporting  us  beyond  seas  to  be  tried  for  pretended  offences." 

In  the  Virginia  "  Bill  of  Rights"  of  1776,  written  also  by  Jefferson, 
it  is  declared  that  — 

"  All  power  is  vested  in,  and  consequently  derived  from,  the  people;  that  magis- 
trates are  their  trustees  and  servants,  and  at  all  times  amenable  to  them. 

"  All  power  of  suspending  laws,  or  the  execution  of  laws,  by  any  authority,  with- 
out consent  of  the  representatives  of  the  people,  is  injurious  to  their  rights,  and  ought 
not  to  be  exercised. 

"  la  all  cases  the  military  should  be  under  strict  subordination  to,  and  governed 
by,  the  civil  power. 

"Freedom  of  the  press  is  one  of  the  great  bulwarks  of  liberty,  and  can  never  be 
restrained  but  by  despotic  governments." 

And  vet  atrain  ;  in  the  "  Declaration  of  Rifjhts"  of  Massachusetts,  in 
1780,  it  is  laid  down  that — 

"  No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  any  crime  or  offence,  until  the  same  is 
fully  and  plainly,  substantially  and  formally,  described  to  him.  And  no  person 
shall  be  arrested,  imprisoned,  or  despoiled,  or  deprived  of  his  property,  immunities, 
or  privileges,  put  out  of  the  protection  of  the  law,  exiled  or  deprived  of  his  life, 
liberty,  or  estate,  hut  hy  the  judgment  of  his  peers,  or  the  law  of  the  land. 

"Every  person  has  a  right  to  be  secure  from  all  unreasonable  searches  and 
seizures  of  his  person,  his  houses,  his  papers,  and  all  his  possessions. 

'■  The  liberty  of  the  press  is  essential  to  the  security  of  freedom  in  a  State. 

"  The  people  have  a  right  to  keep  and  bear  arms  for  the  common  defence.  The 
military  power  shall  always  be  held  in  exax^t  subordination  to  the  civil  authority, 
and  be  governed  by  it. 

"The  people  have  a  right,  in  an  orderly  and  .peaceable  manner,  to  assemble,  to 
consult  upon  the  common  good. 

"The  power  of  suspending  the  laws  ought  never  to  be  exercised  but  by  the 
Legislature,  or  by  authority  derived  from  it,  to  be  exercised  in  such  particular  cases 
only  as  the  Legislature  shall  expressly  provide  for. 

"  No  person  can,  in  any  case,  be  subjected  to  law  martial,  or  to  any  penalties  or 
pains,  by  virtue  of  that  law  (except  those  employed  in  the  army  or  navy,  and  ex- 
cept the  miUtia  in  actual  service),  hut  hy  authority  of  the  Legislature.'" 

Such  were  the  liberties  of  Americans  in  the  Revolutionary  period  of 
our  history,  and  before  it ;  and  they  have  been  embodied  in  all  our 
constitutions  ever  since. 


i 


STATE    OF   THE    COUNTRY.  401 

Let  the  present  Constitution  of  Ohio  speak.  In  our  "  Bill  of  Rights" 
we  declare  that — 

I 

"  All  political  power  is  inherent  in  the  people. 

"  The  people  have  the  right  to  assemble  together  in  a  peaceable  manner,  to  con- 
sult for  their  common  good ;  to  instruct  their  representatives,  and  to  petition  the 
General  Assembly  for  the  redress  of  grievances. 

"  The  people  have  the  right  to  bear  arms  for  their  defence  and  security.  The 
military  shall  be  in  strict  subordination  to  the  civil  power. 

"The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless,  in 
cases  of  rebellioii  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  require  it.  No  power  of  suspending 
laws  shall  ever  be  exercised  except  by  the  General  Assembly. 

''In  any  trial  in  any  court,  the  party  accused  shall  be  allowed  a  speedy  public 
trial,  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  county  or  district  in  which  tlie  offence  is  alleged 
to  have  been  committed. 

"  Every  citizen  may  freely  speak,  write,  and  publish  his  sentiments  on  all  sub- 
jects, being  responsible  for  the  abuse  of  the  right ;  and  no  law  shall  be  passed  to 
abridge  the  liberty  of  speech  or  of  the  press. 

"The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers,  and  pos- 
sessions, against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated. 

"  All  courts  shall  be  open,  and  justice  administered  without  denial  or  delay." 

Similar  provisions  exist  in  every  State  constitution  in  the  United 
States,  thus  securing  everj'  citizen  from  State  tyrann}'^  and  oppression. 
Nor  is  tlie  Federal  Constitution  less  ample  and  explicit.     Hear  it: 

"  All  legislative  powers  herein  granted  shall  be  vested  in  a  Congress  of  the 
United  States." 

"  The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless  when, 
in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  require  it." 

Now,  sir,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government  down  to  tlie  year 
1861,  no  lawyer,  no  jurist,  no  statesman,  no  writer  upon  the  Constitu- 
tion, ever  pretended  that  the  President,  or  any  other  authority,  could 
suspend  the  privilege  of  this  writ,  except  Congress  alone. 

But  I  read  further : 

"The  judicial  power  shall  extend  to  all  cases  in  law  and  equity  arising  under 
this  Constitution,  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  treaties  made,  or  which  shall 
be  made,  under  their  authority. 

"The  trial  of  all  crimes,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment,  shall  be  by  jury,  and 
such  trial  shall  be  held  in  the  State  where  the  said  crimes  shall  have  been  com- 
mitted. 

"Treason  against  the  United  States  shall  consist  only  in  levying  war  against 
them,  or  in  adhering  to  their  enemies,  giving  them  aid  and  comfort.  No  person 
shall  be  convicted  of  treason  unless  on  the  testimony  of  two  witnesses  to  the  same 
overt  act^T  on  confession  in  open  court. 

"  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohib- 
iting the  free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press ; 
or  the  right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to  petition  the  government 
for  a  redress  of  grievances. 

26 


402  vallandtqiiam's  speeches. 

"The  right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arras  shall  not  be  infringed. 

"The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers,  and  effects, 
against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated ;  and  no  warrant 
shall  issue  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by  oath  or  aflirmation,  and  particu- 
larly describing  the  place  to  be  searched,  and  the  persons  and  things  to  be  seized. 

"  No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime, 
nnless  on  a  presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising  in 
'the  land  and  naval  forces,  or  in  the  militia,  when  in  actual  service,  in  time  of  war 
and  public  danger;  NOR  shall  be  deprived  op  life,  liberty,  or  property, witii- 
OOT  DUE  PROCESS  OF  LAW ;  nor  shall  private  property  bo  taken  for  pubUc  use 
without  just  compensation. 

"In  all  criminal  prosecutions,  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy  and 
public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district  wherein  the  crime  shall 
have  been  committed,  which  district  shall  have  been  previously  ascertained  by 
law;  and  to  be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusation  ;  to  be  con- 
fronted with  the  witnesses  against  him;  to  have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining 
witnesses  in  his  favor,  and  to  have  the  assistance  of  counsel  for  his  defence. 

"  The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  pro- 
hibited by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  peo- 
ple." 

These,  tlms   repeated  and  multiplied  over  and   over  again,  are  the 
Magna  Cliarta   of  American   freemen.     They   constitute  the   Body  of 
Ama'icau  Liheriies.    Thev  cost  much  blood  and  treasure,  and  arc  worth 
the  most  precious  treasure  and  blood  of  the  whole  country.     Let  them 
be  maintained  at  every  hazard  and  sacrifice.     They  are  dearer  in  time 
of  war  and  public  danger,  than  in  time  of  peace.     They  are  secured  by 
the  Constitution,  and  can  only  be  forfeited  in  accordance  with  the  Con- 
stitution.    I  abhor  and  denounce  the  monstrous  doctrine,  so  rife  of  late, 
that  the  Constitution  is  suspended  in  time  of  war ;  or  that  the  powers 
under  it  are  enlarged ;  or,  at  least,  that  there  is  a  "  war  power"  above 
and  greater  than  the  Constitution.     Sir,  that  instrument  was  made  for 
war  as  well  as  peace.     It  expressly  gives  to  Congress  the  right  to  de- 
clare war,  raise  armies,  provide  navies,  and  call  out  the  militia  to  exe- 
cute the  laws,  suppress  insurrection,  put  down  rebellion,  and  repel  inva- 
sion.    Every  power,  the  very  utmost  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying 
on  any   war,  foreign  or  domestic,  is  explicitly  given.     The  "  tyrant's 
plea"  of  necessity  is  false.     No  power  that   ought  to  be  exercised  is 
withheld,  and  every  usurpation  is  utterly  without  excuse.     Whoever 
maintains  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  failed  to  make  it  good 
enough  and  strong  enough  for  any  crisis — for  war  and  for  peace — libels 
Washington  and  Madison  and  Hamilton,  and  the  other  patriot^of  '87. 
And  the  man  who  denounces  "sticklers"  for  the  Constitution,  and  de- 
clares that  he  can  tell  a  "  traitor"  by  his  crying  out  for  the  Constitution, 
is  himself  .a  trai'or  or  a  fool.     Keep  an  eye  on  him. 

We  have  no  hope  for  ourselves,  or  our  children,  except  in  the  Con- 


•     STATE    OF   THE    COUNTRY.  403 

stitution.  The  President,  more  than  any  other  man,  is  bound  to  obey 
it.  He  takes  a  solemn  oath  to  support  it.  It  is  his  duty  to  act  accord- 
ing to  law.  Among  the  personal  rights  under  the  Constitution  is  that 
of  habeas  corpus.  The  uniform  testimony  of  courts  and  statesmen  is 
that  it  can  be  suspended  only  by  Congress.  If  the  President  can  sus- 
pend it,  it  can  only  be  by  proclamation,  declaring  where,  and  for  how 
long  it  is  suspended.  He  has  no  right  to  send  a  dispatch  for  the  arrest 
of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  to  say  that,  by  that  act,  his  rain- 
ions  are  authorized  to  suspend  the  writ.  Better  to  live  in  Austria,  in 
Turkey,  or  under  any  other  admitted  despotism,  than  where  the  Presi- 
dent, the  servant  of  the  people,  shall  seize,  without  "  due  process  of 
law,"  and  carry  off  to  prison  any  citizen  under  the  pretence  of  treason. 

These  guarantees  were  not  in  the  original  Constitution,  but  demanded 
by  the  States  and  the  people,  and  added  afterwards.  They  were  added 
for  fear  some  President  mi^ht  be  elected  who  would  claim  to  have  the 
power,  if  not  expressly  withheld  by  the  Constitution.  What  are  they? 
Freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  peaceable  assemblages,  the  right  to 
keep  and  bear  arms,  freedom  from  illegal  arrest.  Yet  you  have  been 
told  that  we  shall  not  be  allowed  to  enjoy  these  rights — that  "  executive 
orders"  shall  be  issued  against  us — that  men  vho  represent  the  voice 
of  the  people  shall  not  be  heard — that  the  press  shall  be  muzzled, 
and  men's  mouths  ccaijsred,  and  no  censure  or  criticism  of  the  acts  of 
the  President,  or  of  the  officials  under  him,  shall  be  permitted,  under 
penalty  of  arrest  and  imprisonment ;  and,  thus,  that  our  personal  and 
political  liberties  shall  be  disregarded,  and  the  Constitution  trampled 
under  foot. 

Well,  sir,  we  shall  see  about  it.  "  No  person  shall  be  deprived  of 
life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law."  Every  civil 
officer  knows  what  "  due  process  of  law"  is,  and,  when  armed  with  such 
due  process,  it  is  the  duty  of  every  person  to  obey.  But  whoever  comes 
with  any  other  papers,  or  any  pretence  of  authority,  by  telegraphic 
dispatch,  or  otherwise,  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  Commander-in-Chief, 
or  President,  deserves  to  be  met  as  a  burglar.  It  is  a  desecration  of 
the  citizen.  There  is  a  statute  against  it.  Let  such  persons  be  met 
by  the  law.  Every  house  is  a  castle,  the  poor  man's  cottage  as  well  as 
the  rich  man's  palace,  in  which  he  may  defy  arbitrary  power.  Such  is 
the  law  in  England.  In  the  lano-uaare  of  Lord  Chatham,  in  that  noblest 
outburst  of  English  eloquence,  "  Tue  poorest  man  in  his  cottage  may 
bid  defiance  to  all  the  forces  of  the  Crown.  It  mav  be  frail:  its  roof 
may  shake;  the  wind  may  blow  through  it;  the  storm  may  enter;  the 
rain  may  enter ;  hut  the  King  of  England  cannot  enter  it.  All  his 
power  dares  not  cross  the  threshold  of  that  ruined  tenement."  (Tre- 
mendous cheering.) 


404  valLandigham's  speeches* 

This  right  is  equally  sacred  and  secured  to-^us  here  in  America,  and 
we  will  never  yield  it  up,  least  of  all  to  onr  own  public  servants.  The 
sooner  it  is  made  known  to  this  Administration  that  the  people  who 
created  it,  and  put  it  in  power,  will  maiiitain  tht-ir  rights,  the  less  trouble 
there  will  be.  I  but  repeat  the  declaration  of  the  two  hundred  thousand 
Democratic  voters  of  Ohio — fifty  thousand  of  them  in  the  army  from 
this  State — that  freedom  cannot  be  violated  by  the  Administration. 
Hear  the  resolution  of  that  Democracy,  in  State  Convention  assembled, 
on  the  4th  of  July  last: 

"  That  we  view  with  indignation  and  alarm  the  illegal  and  unconstitutional 
seizure  and  imprisonment  for  alleged  political  offences,  of  our  citizens,  without 
judicial  process,  in  States  where  such  process  was  unobstructed,  but  bv  executive 
order,  by  telegraph,  or  otherwise ;  and  call  upon  all  who  uphold  the  Union,  the 
Constitution,  and  the  laws,  to  unite  with  us  in  denouncing  and  repelling  such 
flagrant  violation  of  the  State  and  Federal  Constitutions  and  tyrannical  infraction 
of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  American  citizens;  and  that  the  people  of  this  State 
CAxyOT  SAFELY.  AM5  WILL  NOT  SUBMIT  to  have  the  freedom  of  speech  and  the  freedom 
of  the  press,  the  two  great  essential  bulwarks  of  civil  hberty,  put  down  by  unwar- 
ranted and  despotic  exertion  of  power." 

Sir,  the  men  who  urge  on  these  violations  know  not  what  thev  do. 
The  titk  to  your  lands,  to  your  personal  property,  the  legal  right  to  all 
you  have,  rests  in  obedience  to  constitution  and  laws.  Let  this  terrible 
truth  be  proclaimed  eveiy  where,  that  whenever,  either  through  infrac- 
tion and  usurpation  by  the  President,  or  by  violence,  the  Constitution 
is  no  loncrer  of  binding  force  and  the  hiirhest  rule  of  action,  then  we  are 
at  the  mercy  of  mere  power,  military  power  at  last.  This  is  despotism, 
absolute,  unmixed,  cruel  despotism — a  despotism  enforcing  its  orders 
to-day  by  arbitrary  imprisonments,  and  to-morrow  by  bloody  executions. 
Let  all  men  who  love  the  peace,  good  order,  and  happiness  of  society, 
■who  desire  that  the  rights  of  all  classes,  and  that  rights  of  all  kinds 
shall  be  maintained,  lift  up  their  voices  against  the  arbitrary  and  uncon- 
stitutional acts  of  the  paity  in  power.  Men  of  the  Republican  party, 
it  is  your  day  now :  to-morrow,  it  may  be,  it  will  be  ours.  Be  warned 
in  time.  Stand  by  the  Constitution — by  law  and  order.  Do  nothing 
by  usurpation  or  violence.  It  must  react — it  will  react — and  there  is 
no  rarjinor  flood,  no  mountain  torrent,  neither  the  whirlwind,  the  surgrincr 
ocean,  nor  the  avalanche,  like  the  madness  of  an  oppressed  and  outraged 
people.  Do  men,  who  are  inciting  to  mobs  and  acts  of  violence,  or 
applauding  usurpation  and  infraction  of  Constitution  and  law,  not  know 
that  they  are  those  who  suffer  most  and  worst  in  the  end  ?  Do  they 
imagine  that  they  whose  nights,  sacred,  by  God's  appointment,  to 
silence  and  rest,  have  been  invaded  without  process  of  law,  and  their 
wives  and  ^children  terror-stricken  by  arbitrary  arrests  of  husbands  and 
fathers — editors  and  public  men  of  the  loyal  States,  who  have  Ian- 


I 


STATE    OF   THE    COUNTRY.  405 

gnished,  for  opinion's  sake,  within  Bastiles  for  months — will  have  no 
day  of  reckoning  for  all  these  enormities  f  Sir,  that  great  reaction  has 
set  in ;  it  hastens  on.  Oh,  that  you  raay  allow  it  to  be  under  the  Con- 
stitution and  according  to  law — but  come  it  #ill ;  and  be  assured — be 
assured — that  when  that  cfreat  dav  of  account  does  come,  by  the  meas- 

TRE  YOU  HAVE  METED  OUT  TO  US,   BY  THAT  MEASURE  SHALL  IT  BE  METED 

OUT  TO  YOU  AGAIN.  Remember,  remember,  that  wrongs  like  these  burn 
deep  into  the  innermost  recesses  of  our  souls,  steeling  them  against  atone- 
ment and  mercy ;  and  that  when  the  inevitable  change  which  already  is 
hurrying  on  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind,  shall  have  arrived,  that  same 
power,  by  virtue  of  which  you  imprison  us,  will  be  in  our  hands.  Be 
warned  in  time.  All  history. has  been  written  in  vain,  if  our  day  does 
not  come,  and  come  right  speedily  : 

"  For  time  at  last  sets  all  things  even — 
And  if  we  do  but  watch  the  hour. 
There  never  yet  was  human  power 
TThich  could  evade,  if  unforgiven, 
The  patient  search  and  vigil  long 
Of  him  who  treasures  up  a  wrong." 

I  speak  it  not  as  a  menace,  but  by  way  of  entreaty,  that  your  here- 
after in  this  life  depends  upon  your  adherence  to  the  laws  and  Consti- 
tution. And  yet  I  am  amazed  to  learn  that  men  of  wealth  and  position 
in  this  city — lawyers,  clergy,  merchants,  and  others — are  proclaiming 
that  those  in  authority  have  a  right  to  disobey  the  Constitution  and 
laws,  and  ought  to  disobey  them,  to  secure  objects  which  cannot  be 
had  without  disregarding  all  law  and  the  personal  and  political  rights 
of  the  citizen.  Do  these  men  know  w  hat  they  do  ?  Have  they  read 
history  ?  • 

Mr.  Vallaxdigham  here  referred,  at  length,  to  Greece,  Rome,  England,  and  the 
French  Revolution,  for  historic  parallels,  reading  from  the  10th  and  14th  chapters 
of  Allison's  History  of  Europe.  He  quoted  the  "  Law  of  Suspected  Persons," 
under  which  all  France  was  divided  into  twelve  classes  liable  to  arrest;  among 
them  the  following : 

"  1.  All  those  who,  in  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  discourage  their  enthusiasm 
by  cries,  menaces,  or  crafty  discourses.  2.  All  those  who  more  prudently  speak 
only  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  Republic,  and  are  always  ready  to  spread  bad  news 
vrith  an  aSected  air  of  sorrow.  3.  All  those  who  have  changed  tlieir  conduct  and 
language  according  to  the  course  of  events,  who  were  mute  on  the  crimes  of  the 
Roj'alists,  and  loudly  exclaimed  against  the  slight  faults  of  the  EepubUcans. 
10.  Those  who  speak  with  contempt  of  the  constituted  authorities,  the  ensigns  of 
the  law,  the  popular  societies,  or  the  'defenders  of  liberty,'  "  etc. 

Having  read  these  passages,  Mr.  Vallandighau  proceeded : 

Sir,  fifty  thousand  "  Revolutionary  Committees"  sprang  up  in  France 
to  execute  this  terrible  decree.    They  numbered  five  hundred  and  forty 


406  VALLANDIGHA3l's    SPEECHES. 

thousand  members,  each  one  a  special  marshal  or  policeman  to  enforce 
it;  and  in  a  few  weeks  seven  hundred  thousand  citizens  were  suspected 
of  "disloyalty."  The  prisons  were  speedily  loaded  with  victims  in 
every  part  of  France.  iLct  them  quake  in  their  cells,"  said  Collot 
d'llcrbois,  in  the  Convention ;  "  let  the  base  traitors  tremble  at  the 
successes  of  our  enemies;  let  a  mine  be  dufj  under  tlieir  prisons,  and 
at  the  approach  of  those  whom  they  call  their  liberators,  lut  a  spark 
blow  them  into  the  air." 

Mr.  Tallaxdigham  then  read  a  passage  concluding  as  follows : 
'•  Night  came,  bnt  with  it  no  diminution  of  the  anziety  of  the  people.  Every 
familv  early  assembled  its  members :  with  trembling  looks  they  gazed  round  the 
room,  fearful  that  the  very  walls  might  harbor  traitors.  The  sound  of  a  foot,  the 
stroke  of  a  hammer,  a  voice  in  the  streets,  froze  all  hearts  with  horror.  If  a  knock 
was  heard  at  the  door,  every  one,  in  agonized  suspense,  expected  his  fate.  Unable 
to  endure  such  protracted  misery,  numbers  committed  suicide." 

Sir,  all  of  these  enormities  sprang  first  from  a  disregard  of  law  and 
right  in  little  things,  or  in  violations  declared  to  be  "  necessary ;"  and 
advanced  step  by  step,  till  they  culminated  in  the  bloody  and  accumu- 
lated atrocities  of  Marat,  Danton,  and' Robespierre,  when,  by  execution 
or  massacre,  tens  of  thousands  perished.  All  history  is  but  a  repeti- 
tion of  itself;  and  what  has  been,  may  be.  You  of  the  Republican 
party  did  not  believe  me,  two  years  and  move  ago,  when  I  foretold  that 
Abolition  and  sectionalism  must  and  would  produce  civil  war.  And 
you  do  not  believe  me  now.  Xeither  did  the  antediluvians  believe 
Noah  ;  but  the  Flood  came. 

It  is  the  history  of  the  past,  that,  in  times  of  great  public  danger,  the 
provisions  of  the  law  will  not  be  respected.  It  was  that  which  made 
France  go  into  such  great  excesses.  They  began  with  the  savans  and 
lawyers  of  France,  who  taught  the  multitude  that  constitutions  and  laws 
and  personal  rights  did  not  stand  in  their  way ;  and  that  men  might  be 
imprisoned  or  put  to  death  without  process  of  law.  In  such  cases, 
power  falls  alway-s  at  last,  into  the  hands  of  the  worst  of  men. 

Let  the  day  of  reckoning  come,  and  these  men  will  perish  as  they 
have  done  in  all  ages.  Robespierre  died  horribly  in  atonement  for  his 
crimes;  and,  as  the  axe  fell  upon  his  neck,  a  woman  exclaimed  in  tones 
of  terrible  exultation :  "  Murderer  of  my  kindred,  your  agony  fills  me 
with  joy ;  descend  to  hell,  covered  with  the  curses  of  every  mother  in 
France !" 

Sir,  by  the  memories  of  the  past,  by  the  history  of  the  tyrannies  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  and  the  terrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  I  call  on 
all  men  to  demand  of  the  Administration  that  it  obey  the  Constitution. 
If  any  man  be  a  traitor,  guilty  of  any  act  of  treason — not  for  opinion's 
sake,  not  for  political  differences — let  him  be  proceeded  against  accord- 


STATE    OF   THE    COITN'TET.  407 

ing  to  law,  and,  if  guilty,  let  him  perish  on  a  gallows  as  high  as  Ha- 
maa's;  It  is  because  I  would  avoid  these  horrors  that  I  call  on  the 
President  to  keep  the  exercise  of  the  military  law  where  the  Constitu- 
tion keeps  it,  in  the  array  and  navy — and  to  see  to  it  that  no  man,  not 
in  the  anny  and  navy,  shall  be  arrested  without  "  due  process  of  law." 

Hear  the  Constitution  again  :  "  Xo  person  shall  be  deprived  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law."  ''The  accused  shall 
enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury." 
Was  this,  was  either  of  these- rights  ''enjoyed"  by  Flanders,  of  Malone, 
in  Xew  York,  a  Democratic  editor,  "who  was  dragged  from  his  family, 
imprisoned  for  months,  and  then  released  without  charge  against  him, 
and  without  redress  for  the  wrong?  Were  they  enjoyed  by  James  A. 
McMaster '{  Were  they  not  flagrantly  violated  in  the  person  of  James 
W.  Wall,  the  honored  son  of  a  patriot  Senator  of  New  Jersey  ?  Have 
they  been  allowed  to  anyone  arrested  by  "Executive  order?"  Sir, 
this  Administration  has  no  constitutional  or  legal  authority  to  make 
these  arrests.  I  have  as  good  a  right  to  arrest  the  President,  or  any 
one  of  his  Cabinet,  as  he  or  they  have  to  arrest  me  or  anv  other  citizen 
in  this  manner.  The  Constitution  is  broad  enough  and  strong  enough 
for  any  emergency.  It  points  out  the  mode  of  arrest  and  trial  wherever 
there  is  actual  or  suspected  guilt.  Let  it  be  obeyed.  I,  too,  have 
sworn  to  support  that  Constitution ;  and,  more  than  that,  /  have  done 
it.  I  demand  that  all  men,  from  the  humblest  citizen  up  to  the  Presi- 
dent, shall  be  made  to  obey  it  likewise.  In  no  other  way  can  we  have 
liberty,  order,  security.  I  was  born  a  freeman.  I  shall  die  a  freeman. 
It  is  appointed  to  all  men  once  to  die ;  and  death  never  comes  too 
soon  to  one  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty.  I  have  chosen  my  course — 
have  pursued  it — have  adhered  to  it  to  this  hour,  and  will  to  the  end, 
regardless  of  consequences.  My  opinions  are  immovable  ;  fire  cannot 
melt  them  out  of  me.  I  scorn  the  mob.  I  defy  arbitrary  power.  I 
may  be  imprisoned  for  opinion's  sake — never  for  crime ;  never  because 
false  to  the  country  of  my  birth,  or  disloyal  to  the  Constitution  which 
I  worship.  Other  patriots,  in  other  ages,  have  suffered  before  me.  I 
may  die  for  the  cause ;  be  it  so  ;  but  the  "  immortal  fire  shall  outlast 
the  humble  organ  which  conveys  it,  and  the  breath  of  liberty,  like  the 
word  of  the  holy  man,  will  not  die  with  the  prophet,  but  survive  him." 
(Loud  cheers). 

And,  meantime,  men  of  Dayton,  the  opinions  which  I  entertain,  the 
deep  convictions  that  control  me  in  that  course  which,  before  Almighty 
God,  I  believe  can  alone  maintain  the  Constitution  and  restore  the 
Union  as  our  fathers  made  it,  I  never,  never  will  yield  up.  Neither 
height,  nor  depth,  neither  death  nor  life,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers, 
nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come — no,  nor  the  knife  of  the  assas- 


408  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

sin,  shall  move  ine  from  my  firm  purpose.     (Great  and  long-continued 
cheering). 

The  Piesident  professes  to  think  that  the  Union  can  be  restored  by 
arms,  I  do  not.  A  Union  founded  on  consent  can  never  be  cemented 
by  force.  This  is  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers.  It  was  his  own.  He 
said  in  his  Inaugural,  but  sixteen  months  ago : 

"Suppose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always:  and  when,  aTter  much  loss 
on  loth  sides,  and  no  gain  on  either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  old  identical  questions  as 
to  terms  ofintercourse  are  upon  you." 

I  aofree  with  him  in  that.  But  now  we  are  in  the  midst  of  war,  and 
they  who  really  think  that  war  will  maintain  the  Constitution  and  re- 
store the  Union,  ought  to  fight.  I  am  for  the  Union  in  any  event.  It 
is  an  impelling  necessity,  it  is  manifest  destiny,  certainly  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Mississippi,  that  we  be  one  peofple.  We  never  can  fulfil  the 
Great  Mission  appointed  for  us  without  it.  But,  under  Providence,  it 
can  only  be  brought  about  through  the  wisdom,  courage,  and  integrity 
of  the  people. 

At  a  late  ''  war  meeting,"  so-called,  in  this  city,  it  was  charged  by  an 
ex-Governor  of  the  State,  of  "  tin-cup"  memory,  that  I  proposed  to 
divide  this  country  into  four  confederacies  or  republics.  It  is  false, 
and  he  knew  it.  I  proposed  only  to  divide  the  Senate  into  four  divi- 
sions, and  to  change  the  mode  of  electing  the  President.  And  this  I 
did  in  order  to  preserve,  not  to  destroy  the  Uuion.  And  still  my 
heart's  desire  and  prayer  is  to  see  it  restored  just  as  our  fathers  n2ade  it. 

And  now,  men  of  Montgomery,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  upon  what 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  late  proclamation,  has  most  justly  and  truly  called, 
"this  unnecessary  and  injurious  civil  war."  I  am  for  suppressing  re- 
bellion— I  am.  I  always  have  been.  Perhaps  my  mode  is  not  that  of 
other  men ;  but  I  have  the  right — and  mean  to  exercise  it  still — of 
judging  for  myself  of  the  true  and  proper  mode.  I  think  mine  would 
have  prevented  it  at  first ;  and  even  after  it  began,  would  have  ended 
it  long  since.  It  must,  it  will  be  tried  at  last,  if  ever  any  thing  is  to  be 
accomplished.  But  I  have  had  no  power  to  try  it.  They  who  have 
the  power  have  determined  upon  another  way — with  what  success, 
■judge  ye — and,  like  a  good  citizen,  I  resist  not,  but  stand  by  to  see  the 
result  of  the  experiment.  If  it  is  successful  in  maintaining  the  Consti- 
tution and  restoring  the  Union,  I  will  make  full,  open,  explicit  confes- 
sion that  I  was  wrong,  utterly,  totally  wrong,  and  will  retire  to  private 
life  the  residue  of  my  days.  But  if  it  fail — let  the  people  judge  then 
between  me  and  ray  accusers. 

I  repeat  it :  I  am  for  suppressing  all  rebellion — both  rebellions. 
There  are  two — the  Secession  Rebellion  South,  and  the  Abolition  Re- 
bellion North  and  West.     I  am  against  both ;  for  putting  down  both. 


STATE    OF    THE    COUNTRY.  409 

Since  you  have  resolved"  that  there  shall  be  war,  I  commit  the  armed 
Rebellion  South,  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Army,  three-fourths  of  them 
Democrats,  young  Democrats.  I  commit  it  to  Hallcck  and  Buel,  and 
Morgan,  and  others,  and  to  that  abused,  persecuted,  outraged  general 
and  patriot,  George  B.  McClellan.  (Great  cheering).  If  he  cannot  do 
it,  it  is  because,  in  the  nature  of  things,  it  is  not  possible  that  it  be  done 
in  that  way.  The  plan  proposed  by  him  was  the  only  one  which  even 
so  much  as  promised  success.  And  it  implied  a  restoration  of  the 
Union  as  it  was,  and,  meantime,  the  maintenance  of  the  Constitution 
as  it  is.  Tiat  is  the  reason  why  he  has  been  so  persecuted  by  abolition 
rebels  and  disunionists.  But  it  is  the  proud  boast  of  himself  and  his 
friends,  that  in  spite  of  all  their  abuse  and  calumny,  he  has  calmly  and 
steadfastly  pursued  his  policy.  All  our  victories  were  the  result  of  that 
policy;  all  our  reverses  followed  his  supersession.  From  that  hour  to 
this,  these  has  been  no  victory.  Defeat  has  not  lost  him  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  He  has  the  devoted  and  enthusiastic  affection  of  his 
soldiers ;  and  he  has  the  calmness,  the  firmness,  and  the  unshaken  con- 
sistency and  persistency  of  purpose  which  will  enable  him  to  triumph 
in  the  end,  at  least,  over  his  enemies  at  home.  To  him,  therefore,  and 
to  the  Army,  I  commit  the  Secession  Rebellion  of  the  South.  I  waste 
no  breatli  in  idle  denunciation  of  an  enemy  a  thousand  miles  off. 
Cursing  will  not  put  down  men  in  arms,  else  there  would  have  been  an 
end  to  this  armed  rebellion  long  ago.  As  Governor  Richardson 
suo[orested  in  Congress,  the  Jericho  of  Secession  is  not  to  be  thrown 
down  by  the  blowing  of  Abolition  horns.  Whoever  among  the  Aboli- 
tionists would  curse  Secession,  let  him  enlist,  and  then  he  will  show  his 
faith  by  his  works,  and  your  armies  will  be  full  in  a  week.  Let  every 
man  who  would  invite  others  to  go,  first  go  himself.  I  have  never  in- 
terfered with  enlistments.  While  the  war  lasts,  our  armies,  for  many 
reasons,  must  not  be  disban-led  ;  so  I  said  in  Congress  more  than  a 
year  ago.  Without  enlistments  they  cannot  be  kept  up ;  and  if  any 
man,  subject  to  military  duty,  really  thinks  that  the  Union  can  be  re- 
stored by  force  and  arms,  and  only  in  that  way,  let  him  enlist;  it  is  his 
duty  to  enlist ;  he  is  "  disloyal"  if  he  does  not  enlist.  (Cries  of  "Good, 
good  ;  that's  the  talk.")  Whoever  shall  be  drafted,  should  a  draft  be 
ordered  according  to  Constitution  and  law,  is  in  duty  bound,  no  matter 
what  he  thinks  of  the  war,  to  either  go,  or  find  a  substitute,  or  pay  the 
fine  which  the  law  imposes ;  he  has  no  right  to  resist,  and  none  to  run 
awav. 

I  have  said  that,  in  my  deliberate  and  solemn  judgment,  war  cannot 
restore  the  Union,  but,  if  continued  long  enough,  must  destroy  it ;  and, 
it  may  be,  our  own  liberties  also.  "  War,"  said  Douglas,  "  is  disunion ; 
war  is  final,  eternal  separation."     The  Administration  do  not  seem  to 


410  vallandigham's  speeches. 

think  so.  The  country,  just  now,  does  not  think  so.  Mr.  Lincoln  says, 
that  war  is  the  right  way  to  restore  the  Union.  I  think  there  is  another, 
a  better,  the  only  way  to  do  it.  lie  has  the  power  to  try  his;  1  have 
not.  War  is  upon  us ;  and  from  the  beginning,  believing  as  1  did,  and 
yet  powerless  for  good,  1  laid  down  the  rule  for  myself,  and  have  faith- 
fully adhered  to  it,  and  will  to  the  end,  neither  to  vote  for  or  against 
any  purely  war  measure  of  the  Administration.  Wherever  I  have  voted 
upon  any  question,  my  course  has  been  governed  by  other  considera- 
tions than  those  having  reference  to  my  opinions  on  the  war.  Accord- 
ingly, I  have  not  voted  for  any  army  bill,  or  navy  bill,  or  army  or  navy 
appropriation  bill,  since  the  meeting  of  Congress  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1861.  Neither  have  1  voted  against  any  such  bill  from  the  beginning. 
1  appeal  to  the  Globe,  and  to  the  Journals  of  the  llouse,  for  the  proof. 
These  facts  1  refer  to,  because  you  are  my  constituents,  and  have  a  right 
to  know  them.  One  thing,  however,  we  all  must  demand  of  the  Admin- 
istration :  that  the  war  be  conducted  according  to  the  Constitution,  and 
for  a  constitutional  purpose. 

But,  men  of  Dayton,  there  is  another  and  different,  yet  most  des- 
perate rebellion  to  be  dealt  with — the  Abolition  Rebellion  of  the 
North  and  West.  It,  too,  must  be  put  down ;  speedily  and  firmly  put 
down,  if  we  w^ould  save  the  country.  In  my  judgment,  you  will  never 
suppress  the  armed  Secession  Rebellion  till  you  have  crushed  under  foot 
the  pestilent  Abolition  Rebellion  first.  Ask  the  oflScers  and  soldiers  of 
the  army,  and  they  will  tell  you  the  same  thing.  A  Representative,  and 
exempt,  therefore,  from  military  service,  I  believe  it  my  duty  to  stay  at 
home  and  fight  the  Abolition  rebels  of  the  North  and  West.  In  the 
exercise  of  my  constitutional  rights,  which  cannot,  and  shall  not  be  taken 
away,  I  propose  to  do  iliy  part  toward  putting  down  this,  the  earliest 
and  most  desperate  and  malignant  rebellion.  It  must  be  met  by  reason 
and  appeals  to  the  people,  through  the  press  and  in  public  assemblages, 
and  be  put  down  at  the  ballot-box.  But  if  the  overt  rebellion  in  Wis- 
consin and  in  Ohio,  at  Urbana,  in  1857,  and  Cleveland,  in  1859  (the 
one  at  Urbana  an  armed  rebellion),  had  been  promptly  and  severely 
punished  as  they  ought  to  have  been,  we  never  would  have  bad  any 
other. 

Here  Mr.  V.  traced  briefly  the  history  of  the  slavery  question  from 
the  beginning  to  the  present  day.  In  1787,  it  had  been  settled  by  the 
compromises  of  the  Constitution,  and  all  had  been  peace,  quiet,  and 
prosperity,  till  the  terrible  "  Missouri  Question,"  which  struck  upon  the 
ear  of  Jetferson  "like  a  fire-bell  in  the  night."  That  had  been  settled 
by  COMPROMISE,  and  we  had  quiet  and  peace  again  for  fifteen  years,  till 
the  systematic  and  organized  anti-slavery  agitation  began,  in  1835,  at 
■which  time  it  was  so  bitterly  denounced  by  President  Jackson.     But  it 


STATE    OF   THE   COUKTUY.  411 

continued  gaining  strengtii  every  year,  till  it  ended,  as  every  wise  man 
foresaw  it  must  end,  in  an   "  unnecessary  and   injurious  civil  war." 
Fifteen  years  ago  there  were  Secession  disunionists  South,  just  as  there 
were  Abolition  disunionists  in  the  North  and  West.     The  former  were 
in  public  places.  State  and  Federal ;  but  as  soon  as  they  proclaimed 
their  disunion  proclivities,  or  were  even  suspected  of  them,  they  were 
speedily  ejected  from  office,  even  in  South  Carolina.     In  1851,  every 
Southern   State,  without  exception,  carried  the  Union  ticket  upon  a 
direct  issue  ;  and  for  years  no  disunionist,  in  the  South,  could  be  elected 
to  any  office.     How  was  it,  meantime,  in  the  North  and  West  ?     From 
absolute  odium  and  weakness.  Abolitionism  steadily  increased  in  posi- 
tion and  power,  till  the  Senate  began  to  be  filled  with  Abolitionists, 
open  or  in  disguise,   and  the  House  of  Representatives  also ;  and  till 
every  free  State,  in  every  branch  of  its  government,  fell  into  the  hands 
of  active  and  aggressive  anti-slavery  men  ;  and,  finally,  a  President  was 
elected   by  a  sectional  anti-slavery  party,   on  a    sectional  anti-slavery 
platform,  who  himself  declared  that  this  Union  could  not  endure  "  part 
slave  and  part  free."     And   yet,   at   the    South,  even    after  secession 
began,  it  was  with  difficulty  that  any  State  was  induced  to  secede,  ex- 
cept South  Carolina.     In  every  other  cotton  State,  there  was  a  large 
minority  against  secession ;  and  up  to   April  15th,  1861,  North  Caro- 
lina, Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  refused,  by  large  majorities,  to 
secede,  while  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri  adhere  to 
the  Union  to  this  day.     In  the  very  midst  of  secession,  if  any  fair  and 
adequate  compromise  had  been  proposed  by  Congress,  especially  if  the 
"Crittenden  propositions"  of  December,  1860,  had  been  adopted,  seces- 
sion would  have  perished.     Mr.  Davis  and  Mr.  Toombs  both  declared 
that  they  would  be  content.     That  is  the  statement  of  Mr.  Pugh.     It  is 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  Douglas  also.     But  those  propositions  never  re- 
ceived a  solitary  Republican  vote  in  either  the  Senate  or  the  House. 
"  Hence,  the  sole  responsibility  for  our  disagreement,"  said  Douglas,  on 
the  3d  of  January,  1861,  "and  the  only  difficulty  in  the  way  of  our 
amicable  adjustment,  is  with  the  Republican  party." 

Sir,  these  are  facts  which  it  is  useless  to  deny,  and  senseless  to  quarrel 
with  ;  and  they  are  part  of  tlie  many  circumstances  upon  which  I  found 
my  immovable  hope  of  a  final  restoration  of  the  Union,  in  spite  of  the 
folly  and  madness  and  wickedness  every  day  exhibited,  uniting  the 
South,  and  dividing  the  North  and  West. 

The  South  is  now  well  nigh  united  as  one  man  ;  and  for  nearly  three 
months  we  have  met  with  little  else  than  defeat.  What  united  the 
South  ?  What  changed  the  fortunes  of  the  war  ?  In  the  beo'inninjj  it 
was  declared  to  be  for  the  Union  and  the  Constitution.  These  were 
noble  objects,  and  success  attended  our  arms.     Before  the  Battle  of  Bull 


412  VALLAXDIGHAm's   SrEECHES. 

Run,  Mr.  Crittenden  sought  to  offer  his  now  often  quoted  resolution, 
defining  the  objects  of  the  war,  and  the  Republicans  did  not  allow  it  to 
be  even  so  much  as  received.  It  was  met  with  sneers  and  contempt. 
The  day  after  the  battle,  when  Washington  wfis  full  of  escaped  soldiers, 
and  fugacious  Congressmen  from  the  battle-field,  it  was  offered  again, 
and  without  objection.  But  two  men,  both  Republicans,  voted  ao^ainst 
that  part  'of  it.  I  voted  for  that  part  of  it,  but  not  for  the  first,  because 
it  did  not  speak  the  whole  truth  ;  because  it  did  not  denounce  the  Abo- 
lition disuiiionists  of  the  North  and  West  also,  and  hold  them  responsi- 
ble too.  Six  hundred  thousand  men  were  soon  afterward  enlisted.  The 
victories  of  Hatteras,  Port  Royal,  Mill  Springs,  Donelson,  Roanoke, 
Winchester,  Newbern,  Island  Ten,  New  Orleans,  Norfolk,  and  others,  all 
followed.  Then  was  the  hour  for  wisdom  and  sound  policy.  But,  no ; 
it  was  the  exact  time  selected  by  Abolitionism  for  the  very  saturnalia 
of  its  folly  and  madness.  Every  scheme  and  project  of  emancipation, 
execution,  and  confiscation.  Congressional  and  Executive,  of  the  whole 
session,  was  pressed  forward,  and  many  of  them  consummated  during 
this  same  period  of  victory.  The  war  was  everywhere  to  be  perverted 
from  the  spirit  of  the  "Crittenden  resolution."  And  with  what  result? 
The  South,  before  that  time  divided,  was  now  united  as  one  man. 
Even  the  border  slave  States  were  shaken  to  the  centre,  and  thousands 
of  their  citizens  driven  into  the  Confederate  service.  The.  armies  of  the 
South  were  rapidly  filled  up.  A  spirit  was  breathed  into  each  man's 
breast  which  made  him  a  host.  It  was  these  things,  and  such  infamous 
orders  as  Butler's  at  New  Orleans,  which  inspired  their  armies,  making 
them  invincible — and  not  overwhelming  numbers.  Victory  everywhere 
•was  theirs.  McDowell,  The  Seven  Pines,  Front  Royal,  Winchester, 
Cross  Keys,  Port  Republic,  James  Island,  Vicksburg,  and  the  Great 
Seven  Days  Battle  of  Richmond,  all  followed.  The  men,  and  the 
women,  too,  of  the  South,  said.  If  indiscriminate  execution,  confiscation, 
and  emancipation  are  to  be  the  rule  of  the  Federal  Government,  let  us 
perish  rather  on  the  battle-field. 

This  is  what  Abolitionism  has  cost  us  already^ — an  unnecessary  and 
injurious  civil  war ;  a  united  South ;  a  divided  North  and  West ;  a 
diminished  Federal  army  ;  an  increased  Confederate  army  ;  the  one  dis- 
pirited, the  other  confident ;  fifteen  months  of  most  vigorous  war,  with 
the  largest  army  and  most  numerous  navy  of  modern  times ;  and  yet 
not  a  single  State  restored  ;  but  a  public  debt  of  a  thousand  millions  of 
dollars  incurred,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  brave  men  lost  to 
the  army,  no  man  knows  how.  For  all  this.  Abolitionism  is  responsible. 
Let  it  answer  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion.  Let  the  people  judge.  Let 
the  inexorable  sentence  go  forth,  and  just  and  speedy  judgment  be  exe- 
cuted upon  it. 


STATE    OF   THE    COIJ]!iTET.         »  413 

These,  men  of  Dayton,  are  my  opinions.  They  are  my  convictions. 
And  yet,  for  these  I  am  denounced  as  "  disloyal !"  What  is  loyalty 
in  the  United  States  ?  Obedience,  faithfulness  to  law,  or,  in  Norman- 
French,  to  Loi ;  and  there  is  no  higher  law  than  the 'Constitution. 
Whoever  obeys  the  laws  is  loyal  ;  whoever  breaks  them,  whether  one 
in  authority,  or  a  private  citizen,  is  disloyal.  There  is  no  such  thing 
here  yet,  thank  God,  as  loyalty  to  a  President,  or  to  any  Administra- 
tion. And  yet,  I  have  heard  of  loyalty  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  to  a  man, 
a  public  servant,  whom  the  people  made,  and  can  unmake  !  Whoever 
talks  thus  is  fit  only  to  be  a  slave.  If  these  men  mean  that  I  am  op- 
posed to  the  Administration  and  party  in  power,  and  to  the  doctrines 
and  policy  of  Abolition,  and  think  them  false  to  the  Constitution,  and 
disastrous  to  the  country  ;  if  they  mean  that  I  am  a  Democrat,  devoted 
to  the  principles  and  policy,  and  faithful  to  the  organization  of  that 
grand  old  party  which  made  this  country  what  it  is,  and  am  for  the  old 
Constitution  and  the  old  Union,  then  I  am  disloyal,  and  bless  God  for 
it.  But  if  they  mean  that  I  am  false  to  the  Constitution,  untrue  to  the 
Union,  or  disloyal  to  the  country  of  my  birth,  in  thought,  or  word,  or 
deed,  then,  in  the  language  of  an  eloquent  citizen  of  Indiana  (Mr.  Voor- 
bees),  "  thej'^  lie  in  their  teeth,  in  their  throats,  and  in  their  hearts." 
(Loud  cheers.) 

Who  is  an  Abolitionist  ?  Whoever  is  for  indiscriminate  confiscation, 
in  order  to  strike  at  slavery,  is  an  Abolitionist.  ^Vhoever  is  for  eman- 
cipation and  purchase  of  the  slaves  of  the  border  States,  and  the  pre- 
tended colonization  of  them  abroad,  but  really  their  importation  North 
and  West,  to  compete  with  our  own  white  labor,  is  an  Abolitionist. 
Whoever  would  reduce  the  Southern  States  to  Territories,  in  order  to 
strike  down'  slavery  in  them  by  Federal  power,  is  an  Abolitionist. 
Whoever  is  in  favor  of  arming  the  slaves,  or  of  declaring  slavery  abol- 
ished by  executive  or  military  proclamation,  is  an  Abolitionist.  And, 
finally,  whoever  is  for  converting  the  war,  directly  or  indirectly,  into  a 
crusade  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  is  an  Abolitionist  of  the  worst  sort; 
and  he  who  votes  for  those  who  favor  these  things,  is  also  an  Abolition- 
ist in  practice,  no  matter  what  his  professions  or  his  party  name  may 
be.  Whoever  is  opposed  to  these  projects  and  votes  accordingly,  and 
is  for  the  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  the  Union  as  it  was,  is  a  truly  loyal 
citizen,  whether  he  fights  Secession  rebels  in  the  field,  or  Abolition 
rebels  at  the  ballot-box. 

And  now,  men  of  Montgomery,  if  you  desire  that  the  rebellion  at 
the  South  shall  be  suppressed,  that  the  Confederate  armies  shall  be  dis- 
solved, and  that  the  Constitution  shall  be  maintained,  the  Union  re- 
stored, and  all  laws  obeyed,  unite  with  me  at  the  ballot-box  in  speedily 
and  forever  crushing  out  the  execrable  Abolition  rebellion  in  the  North 


414  vallandigham's  speeches. 

and  West.  Whoever  feels  it  his  duty  to  fight  arraed  rebels  at  the 
South,  let  him  enlist  at  once ;  let  hini  not  bny  up  a  substitute,  but  go 
himself.  Whoever  remains  at  home,  it  is  his  duty  to  join  with  me 
against  Abolition  rebels  in  our  midst.  This  is  loyalty  ;  this  is  fidelity 
to  the  Union.  The  hour  of  trial  and  of  vindication  will  soon  come. 
The  GREAT  HEREAFTER  is  at  hand.  In  six  months — I  repeat  it — in 
three  months,  in  six  weeks,  it  may  be — sooner  or  later,  come  meantime 
■what  may,  the  question  will  be,  eternal  separation,  or  the  Union 
through  compromise.  Which  will  you  then  choose — not  now,  not  yet ; 
for  amid  arms  reason,  too,  is  silent — but  when  it  does  come  ?  Come  it 
will,  and  then  vou  must  choose  between  the  Union  which  our  fathers 
made,  or  a  hopeless,  cheerless,  eternal,  and  belligerent  disunion.  I  be- 
lieve that  the  Administration  will  declare  for  separation.  Then,  as  now  and 
ever,  I  shall  be  for  the  Union,  and  against  separation.  Sir,  the  choice 
must  be  made,  and  made  soon.  We  have  already  an  enormous  debt. 
A  tbousand  millions  would  not  pay  it.  We  spend  three  millions  a 
day.  How  long  can  you  stand  that  ?  Our  army  of  six  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  thousand  last  January,  has  melted  away  to  four  hundred 
thousand  ;  and  now  three  hundred  thousand  more  volunteers  are  de- 
manded, and  will  soon  be  in  the  field.  Yet,  only  fifteen  months  ago, 
just  seventy-five  thousand  militia  were  called  out,  and  the  "  insurgents" 
officially  commanded  to  disperse  in  twenty  days  !  A  government  paper 
currency  of  hundreds  of  millions  is  upon  us;  and  a  taxation  the  most 
onerous  and  unjust  ever  levied  upon  any  but  a  conquered  people.  A 
tariff,  too,  of  from  forty-one  to  one  hundred  and  thirteen  per  cent.,  as 
if  to  heap  up  the  utmost  measure  of  the  load,  is  now  added.  Stand 
in  the  doorway  of  your  farm-house,  and  behold  and  feel  nothing,  noth- 
ing not  taxed,  except  the  air  you  breathe,  and  the  bright  sunlight  or 
starlight  of  heaven  !  And  yet  you  must  pay  it,  to  the  uttermost  far- 
thing. None  but  a  madman  or  a  traitor  will  talk  of  resistance  or  repu- 
diation. It  was  not  so  in  Democratic  times.  For  sixtv  vears  that 
party  governed  this  country  in  peace  and  prosperity,  and  with  wisdom 
and  sound  policy.  Try  it  again.  I  am  a  party  man,  more  from  con- 
viction than  inclination.  There  must  be  parties  under  every  free  gov- 
ernment, and  if  there  are  not  good  parties,  there  will  be  bad  ones ;  and 
"when  bad  men  combine,"  said  Burke,  "good  men  must  associate." 
Why  did  the  Democratic  party  always  govern  this  country  wisely  and 
well,  and  all  other  parties  fail  ?  Because  our  institutions  are  Demo- 
cratic, and  the  principles  and  policy  of  the  Democratic  party  are  con- 
sistent with  them  ;  just  as  a  piece  of  mechanism  can  only  be  made  to 
work  upon  the  principle  or  theory  on  which  it  is  constructed.  That  is 
the  philosophy  of  the  historic  fact.  But  the  Democratic  party  could 
not  conduct  the  British  government  three  months  without  signal  and 


POLITICAL    CAMPAIGN    OF    1862.  415 

disastrous  failure.  Let  the  people  lay  these  things  to  heart.  Let  them 
restore  the  Democratic  party  to  power,  if  they  would  be  rescued  at 
last.  And,  meantime,  if  the  President  would  be  sustained,  let  him  re- 
sist fearlessly  the  spirit  of  Abolitionism  ;  let  him  adhere  to  the  Consti- 
tution ;  and  himself  obey  all  laws,  and  execute  all  laws  ;  let  him  un- 
muzzle the  press,  and  unfetter  the  tongue,  and  give  freedom  again  to 
assemblages  of  the  people,  and  to  elections ;  let  him  liberate  his  so- 
cal-led  prisoners  of  State,  and  henceforth  arrest  no  man  without  due 
process  of  law  ;  in  a  word,  let  him  look  to  love,  not  fear ;  to  law,  not 
terror,  as  the  support  of  his  administration  ;  and  every  true  patriot  in 
the  land  will  rally  round  him  ;  and  then,  in  God's  good  time,  our  eyes 
shall  yet  be  gladdened,  dark  as  the  hour  now  is,  with  the  blessed  vision 
of  the  Constitution  maintained,  the  Union  restored,  and  the  old  flag 
of  our  country  known  and  honored  once  again  in  every  land,  and  upon 
every  sea.     (Great  and  long-continued  cheering.) 


ADDRESS, 

Accepting  the  Nomination  of  the  Democratic    Congressional  District 
Convention,  at  Hamilton,  Ohio,  September  4,  1862. 

DEMOCI\kTS    OF    THE    ThIRD    DISTRICT : 

Just  after  the  congressional  election  in  1860,  acknowledging  my  very 
many  and  great  obligations  to  you  for  past  favors,  I  declared  my  fixed 
purpose  to  decline  another  candidacy.  In  this  mind  I  continued 
through  all  the  extraordinary  changes  of  the  past  two  years.  I  learned,- 
indeed,  some  time  ago,  from  many  sources,  and  upon  unmistakable 
evidence,  that  it  was  the  general  desire  of  the  Democracy  of  the  Dis- 
trict that  I  should  be  their  candidate  again,  and  I  thanked  them  for  the 
confidence  implied.  But  recently  circumstances  have  changed.  The 
"reign  of  terror"  has  been  renewed  with  more  severity  than  ever  be- 
fore. Freedom  of  the  press  and  of  speech  has  been  repeatedly  and 
causelessly  stricken  down.  Political  and  personal  liberty  has,  over  and 
over  again,  been  assailed  by  illegal  and  arbitrary  arrests ;  and  thus  a 
determined  purpose  evinced  to  break  down  the  ancient,  customary,  and 
constitutional  means  of  opposition  to  the  political  party  in  power, 
under  the  false  and  tyrannical  pretence  that  it  is  "  opposition  to  the 
Government."  To  shrink  from  a  canvass  pressed  upon  me  by  the 
unanimous  voice  of  the  Democracy  of  the  District,  would  be  cowardice 
now.  You  have  never  deserted  me  ;  I  will  not,  in  this  hour  of  peculiar 
trial  and  peril,  desert  you.     With  many  and  most  heartfelt  thanks, 


416  vallandigham's  speeches. 

therefore,  I  accept  the  nnanirnous  nomination  just  tendered  to  me,  con- 
tent with  your  indorsement  here  to-day,  and  the  ratification  of  it  by 
the  Democrats,  and  other  Knal  Union  men  of  the  District,  at  the  polls, 
as  of  more  value  than  an  election  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
party  and  tlie  principles  which  my  judgment  and  conscience  approve, 
and  which  I  have  adhered  to  and  maintained  from  my  very  boyhood 
to  this  day ;  a  party,  too,  the  success  of  which  is  so  essential,  at  this 
moment,  to  the  reunion  of  the  States,  and  the  peace  and  prosperity  of 
the  country  ;  for,  if  there  be  any  one  fact  proved  now  beyond  a  rea- 
sonable doubt,  it  is  the  utter  incompetency  of  the  party  in  power  to 
successfully  administer  the  government.  I  know,  indeed,  that  the 
district  in  which  I  have  been  three  times  honored  with  an  election,  has 
been  changed  by  a  "  no  party"  partisan  Legislature,  and  made  heanly 
Republican,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  return  of  a  Democrat; 
and  that  at  the  election  last  fall,  the  counties  which  now  compose  this 
district,  save  the  Republican  or  fusion  candidate  for  governor  a  very  large 
majority.  But  districts  made  for  party  purposes  have  more  than  once 
been  changed  by  the  people  at  the  polls,  and  greater  majorities  than 
this  many  times  overcome,  as  was,  indeed,  done  last  spring,  even  in  the 
district  as  now  constituted.  In  any  event,  the  vindication  of  Demo- 
cratic principles  and  the  Democratic  cause  is,  at  this  time  especially, 
of  far  more  importance  than  mere  success  in  any  election. 

At  your  demand,  therefore,  men  of  the  Third  District,  I  accept  the 
nomination,  and  present  myself  to  the  people  for  their  suffrages,  upon 
no  other  platform  than  the  CoysriTCTiox  as  it  is,  axd  the  Uxiox  as 

IT  "WAS. 

It  is  a  platform  broad  enough  for  every  patriot.  Whoever  is  for  it, 
I  ask  his  support.  Whoever  is  against  it,  I  would  not  have  his  vote. 
Every  faculty  of  body  and  mind  which  I  possess  shall  be  exerted  un- 
remittingly for  the  great  purpose  implied  in  this  platform. 

As  a  Representative,  it  is  my  duty  to  visit  the  constituency  of  the 
old  district,  still  a  part  of  the  new,  and  to  render  to  them  an  account 
of  my  stewardship  as  a  public  servant.  As  a  candidate,  I  have  a  right 
to  address  the  people  upon  all  political  questions,  and  they  have  a 
right  to  hear  me. 

Savs  the  Constitution  : 

"  Members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  shall  be  chosen  every  second  year 
by  the  people." 

And  again  :  ' 

"Cocgress  shall  make  no  law  abridging  the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press; 
or  the  right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to  petition  the  government 
for  a  redress  of  grievances." 


O:^   ACCEPTING    A    CAXE.  417 

Oar  State  Constitution  is  still  more  explicit : 

"  The  people  have  the  right  to  assemble  together  in  a  peaceable  manner,  lo  con- 
sult for  their  common  good ;  to  instruct  their  representatives,  and  to  petition  the 
Gr€neral  Assembly  for  the  redress  of  grievances." 

These  high  and  essential  constitutional  rights  the  Deraorrats,  and 
other  lojal  Union  men  of  this  district  everywhere,  and  I,  as  their  can- 
didate, mean  to  exercise  to  the  fullest  extent.  And  it  will  tend  much 
toward  the  quiet  and  good  feeling  of  communities,  if  all  idle  talk,  such 
as  that  the  Democratic  candidate  shall  not  speak  in  this  place  or  that 
place,  be  dispensed  with  ;  for,  let  it  be  understood,  #nce  for  all,  that 
wherever,  in  any  part  of  any  county  in  the  district,  it  is  deemed  con- 
venient and  proper  to  advertise  a  Democratic  meeting,  it  will  be 
held;  axd,  God  willing,  I  will  address   it* 


ADDRESS, 

Accepting  a  Cane  presented  by  the  Ladies  of  Dayton,  Kov.  21,  1862.f 

Mr.  Lowe  :  With  a  grateful  heart  I  receive  this  cane  from  the  ladies 
for  whom  you  have  just  spoken.  Valuable  in  itself,  it  is  to  me  far 
more  valuable  because  of  the  kindly  motives  which  have  induced  its 
presentation :  but  especially  as  a  testimony  of  their  approbation  of  my 
conduct  as  a  public  man,  in  the  recent  and  present  perilous  times  of 
the  country.  From  them  I  accept  it  as  a  large  recompense  for  what- 
ever of  calumny  and  reproach  I  have  endured  for  the  last  eighteen 
months,  because  of  my  adherence  to  principle  and  a  course  of  public 
policy  which,  in  my  conscience  and  judgment,  I  believed  essential  to 
the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the  best  interests  of  mv  country. 
Such  honors  are  bestowed  commonly  upon  the  heroes  of  military  war- 
fare. But  if  I  merit  any  part  of  the  praise  which  you  have  so  eloquently 
expressed,  it  is  moral  heroism,  which,  to-night,  is  honored  by  these 
ceremonies.     It  is  the  victories  of  peace  which  you  here   celebrate, 

*  Mr.  T.  then  defined  his  position  as  to  State  defence,  expressed  in  the  follow- 
ing resolution,  which  he  offered,  and  which  was  adopted  unanimously : 

' '  Rcsohed,  That  it  is  the  highest  duty  of  the  citizen,  whenever  his  country  or 
State  is  invaded,  to  rush  to  its  rescue,  by  arms,  if  he  is  capable  of  military  service, 
and  by  money  or  otherwise,  every  way.  if  he  is  not ;  and  that  the  Democracy,  as 
a  part  of  the  people  of  this  district,  laying  aside  all  party  feeling  for  that  purpose, 
are  ready,  with  life  and  fortune,  to  do  their  part  in  discharging  this  patriotic 
duty." 

f  The  presentation  was  made  at  the  residence  of  Judge  ilOBSE,  near  Dayton, 
at  a  pleasant  evening  entertainment.     Thomas  0.  Lowe,  Esq.,  presented  the  cane 
on  behalf  of  the  ladies  in  a  handsome  speech. 
27 


418  TALLA>'DIGH  A  Af's    SPEECHES. 

Her  triamphs  are,  indeed,  grander,  and  her  conquests  nobler  than  any 
achieved  by  the  military  hero  upon  the  battle-field.  And  it  is  espe- 
cially fitting  that  these  honors  should  be  paid  to  the  cause — though  I, 
myself,  may  deserve  them  not — by  the  woues  of  the  country ;  and, 
•while  I  lament  that  so  many  among  them  should  have  forgotten  the 
softness  of  their  sex,  and  the  mild  teachings  of  a  religion,  essential,  in- 
deed, to  man,  but  especially  congenial  to  woman's  nature,  yet  I  rejoice 
that  so  many,  also,  have  laid  not  aside  the  ornament  of  a  meek  and 
quiet  spirit,  but  remembered  and  clung  yet  the  more  steadfastly  to  the 
gospel  of  peace  and  love,  even  amid  the  phrensy  of  a  desolating  and 
demoralizino^  civil  war.  True  to  woman's  mission,  thev  are,  or  will  be 
the  wives,  mothers,  daughters,  and  sisters,  who,  by  precept,  example, 
or  association,  shall  bring  back  yet  the  present,  or  educate  a  new  gene- 
ration which  shall  restore  peace,  the  Union,  and  constitutional  liberty, 
with  all  their  virtues  and  their  blessings,  once  more  to  this  bleeding 
and  distracted  country.  If,  indeed,  sir,  I  have  exhibited  any  part  of 
the  high  qualities  of  courage,  fortitude,  and  immovable  devotion  to  the 
GOOD  AND  TTHE  RIGHT,  which,  On  behalf  of  these  ladies,  you  have  so 
kindly  attributed  to  me,  it  is  to  one  of  their  own  sex,  more  than  to  any 
other  human  agency,  that  I  am  indebted  for  them — my  mother.  In 
childhood,  in  boyhood,  and  in  youth,  in  the  midst  of  many  trials,  from 
her  teachings,  and  by  her  example,  I  learned  those  lessons,  and  farmed 
the  character  and  habits — if  it  be  so — which  fitted  me,  with  courage 
and  endurance,  and  unfaltering  faith,  to  struggle  with  the  terrible  times 
in  the  midst  of  which  we  live. 

Congratulating  the  ladies  on  the  selection  of  yourself  as  their  repre- 
sentative upon  this  occasion,  and  thanking  you  cordially  for  the  many 
kind  things  you  have  been  pleased  to  say,  I  accept  this  beautiful  pres- 
ent, with  my  most  grateful  acknowledgments  to  one  and  all  here  assem- 
bled. 


SPEECH    ON   THE    GREAT   CIVIL    WAR    IN  AMERICA. 
In  the  House  of  Representatives,  ^Tan.  14, 1863.* 

Bellum  atrox^  lu^bre,  ineertrtm  vietU  tt  tidoribu*. — TACirrs. 

Mr.  Speaker  :  Indorsed  at  the  recent  election,  within  the  same  dis- 
trict for  which  I  still  hold  a  seat  on  this  floor,  by  a  majority  four  times 
greater  than  ever  before,  I  speak  to-day  in  the  name  and  by  the  author- 
ity of  the  people  who,  for  six  years,  have  intrusted  me  with  the  office 

*  See  Supplement,  p.  5*3. 


THE    GEEAT    CmL    WAE    I>'    A3CEEICA.  419 

of  a  Representative.  Loyal,  in  the  trne  and  hisrbest  sense  of  the  word, 
to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union,  they  have  proved  themselves  devo- 
tedly attached  to,  and  worthy  of,  the  liberties  to  secure  which  the 
Union  and  the  Constitution  were  established.  With  candor  and  free- 
dom, therefore,  as  their  Representative,  and  much  plainness  of  speech, 
but  with  the  dignity  and  decency  due  to  this  presence,  I  propose  to 
consider  the  State  of  the  Union  to-day,  and  to  inquire  what  the  duty 
is  of  every  public  man  and  every  citizen  in  this  the  very  crisis  of  the 
Great  Revolution. 

It  is  now  two  years,  sir,  since  Congress  assembled  soon  after  the 
Presidential  election.  A  sectional  anti-slavery  party  had  then  just  suc- 
ceeded through  the  forms  of  the  Constitution.  For  the  first  time  a 
President  had  been  chosen  upon  a  platform  of  avowed  hostility  to  an 
institution  peculiar  to  nearly  one-half  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  and 
who  had  himself  proclaimed  that  there  was  an  irrepressible  conflict,  be- 
cause of  that  institution,  between  the  Slates;  and  that  the  Union  could 
not  endure  *'  part  slave  and  part  free."  Congress  met,  therefore,  in  the 
midst  of  the  profoundest  agitation,  not  here  only,  but  throughout  the 
entire  South.  Revolution  glared  upon  us.  Repeated  efforts  for  con- 
ciliation and  compromise  were  attempted,  in  Congress  and  out  of  it. 
All  were  rejected  by  the  party  just  coming  into  power,  except  only  the 
promise  in  the  last  hours  of  the  session,  and  that,  too,  against  the  con- 
sent of  a  majority  of  that  party  both  in  the  Senate  and  House  :  that 
Congress — not  the  Executive — should  never  be  authorized  to  abolish 
or  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  existed.  South  Carolina 
seceded ;  Georgia,  Alabama,  Florida,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  and  Texas 
speedily  followed.  The  Confederate  Government  was  established.  The 
other  slave  States  held  bacL  Vii^inia  demanded  a  peace  congress. 
The  commissioners  met,  and,  after  some  time,  agreed  upon  terms  of 
final  a'ljustment.  But  neither  in  the  Senate  nor  the  House  were  they 
allowed  even  a  respectful  consideration.  The  President  elect  left  his 
home  in  February,  aud  journeyed  towards  this  capital,  jesting  as  he 
came:  proclaiming  that  the  crisis  was  only  artificial,  and  that  "nobody 
was  hurt,"  He  entered  this  city  under  cover  of  night  and  in  disguise. 
On  the  4th  of  March  he  was  inaugurated,  surrounded  by  soldiery ;  and, 
swearing  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  announced  in 
the  same  breath  that  the  platform  of  his  party  should  be  the  law  unto  him. 
From  that  moment  all  hope  of  peaceable  aiijustraent  fled.  But  for  a  little 
while,  either  with  unsteadfast  sincerity  or  in  premeditated  deceit,  the  policy 
of  peace  was  proclaimed,  even  to  the  evacuation  of  Sumter  and  the 
other  Federal  forts  and  arsenals  in  the  seceded  States.  "Why  that  policy 
was  suddenly  abandoned,  time  will  fully  disclose.  But  just  after  the 
spring  elections,  and  the  secret  meeting  in  this  city  of  the  Governors 


420  vallandigham's  speeches. 

of  several  Northern  and  Western  States,  a  fleet  of  eight  vessels,  carrying 
fourteen  hundred  men,  was  sent  down  ostensibly  to  provision  Fort  Sum- 
ter. Tiic  authorities  of  South  Carolina  eagerly  accepted  the  challenge, 
and  bombarded  the  fort  into  surrender,  while  the  fleet  fired  not  a  gun, 
but,  just  as  soon  as  the  flag  was  struck,  bore  away  ancl  returm-d  to  the 
North.  It  was  Sunday,  the  14th  of  April,  1861;  and  that  day  the 
President,  in  fatal  haste,  and  without  the  advice  or  consent  of  Con- 
gress, issued  his  proclamation,  dated  the  next  day,  calling  out  seventy- 
five  thousand  militia  for  three  months,  to  repossess  the  forts,  places, 
and  property  seized  from  the  United  States,  and  commanding  the  in- 
surgents to  disperse  in  twenty  days.  Again  the  gauge  was  taken  up  by 
the  South,  and  thus  the  flames  of  a  civil  war,  the  grandest,  bloodiest, 
and  saddest  in  history,  lighted  up  the  whole  heavens.  Virginia  forth- 
with seceded.  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas,  followed; 
Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri  were  in  a  blaze  of  agita- 
tion, and  within  a  week  from  the  proclamation,  the  line  of  the  Confed- 
erate States  was  transferred  from  the  cotton  States  to  the  Potomac,  and 
almost  to  the  Ohio  and  the  Missouri,  and  their  population  and  fighting 
men  doubled. 

In  the  North  and  West,  too,  the  storm  raged  with  the  fury  of  a  hur- 
ricane. Never  in  history  was  any  thing  equal  to  it.  Men,  women,  and 
children,  native  and  foreign-born,  Church  and  State,  clergy  and  lay- 
men, were  all  swept  along  with  the  current.  Distinction  of  age,  sex, 
station,  party,  perished  in  an  instant.  Thousands  bent  before  the  tem- 
pest ;  and  here  and  there  only  was  one  found  bold  enough,  foolhardy 
enough  it  may  have  been,  to  bend  not,  and  him  it  smote  as  a  consu- 
ming fire.  The  spirit  of  persecution  for  opinion's  sake,  almost  extinct 
in  the  old  world,  now,  by  some  mysterious  transmigration,  appeared 
incarnate  in  the  new.  Social  relations  were  dissolved  ;  friendships 
broken  up  ;  the  ties  of  family  and  kindred  snapped  asunder.  Stripes 
and  hanging  were  everywhere  threatened,  sometimes  executed.  Assas- 
sination was  invoked ;  slander  sharpened  his  tooth ;  falsehood  crushed 
truth  to  the  earth ;  reason  fled ;  madness  reigned.  Not  justice  only 
escaped  to  the  skies,  but  peace  returned  to  the  bosom  of  God,  whence 
she  came.  The  gospel  of  love  perished ;  liate  sat  enthroned,  and  the 
sacrifices  of  blood  smoked  upon  every  altar. 

But  the  reign  of  the  mob  was  inaugurated  only  to  be  supplanted  by 
the  iron  domination  of  arbitrary  power.  Constitutional  limitation  was 
broken  down ;  habeas  corpus  fell ;  liberty  of  the  press,  of  speech,  of 
the  person,  of  the  mails,  of  travel,  of  one's  own  house,  and  of  religion; 
the  right  to  bear  arms,  due  process  of  law,  judicial  trial,  trial  by  jury,  trial 
at  all;  every  badge  and  muniment  of  freedom  in  republican  government 
or  kingly  government — all  went  down  at  a  blow;  and  the  chief  law- 


THE    GKEAT    CIVIL    WAE   IN   AMEEICA.  4,21 

officer  of  the  crown — I  beg  pardon,  sir,  but  it  is  easy  now  to  fall  into 
this  courtly  language — the  Attorney-General,  first  of  all  men,  proclaimed 
in  the  United  States  the  maxim  of  Roman  servility  :  Whatever  pleases 
the  President,  that  is  law  !  Prisoners  of  state  were  then  first  heard  of 
here.  Midnight  and  arbitrary  arrests  commenced;  travel  was  inter- 
dicted ;  trade  embargoed ;  passports  demanded ;  bastiles  were  intro- 
duced ;  strange  oaths  invented  ;  a  secret  police  organized  ;  "  piping" 
began ;  informers  multiplied ;  spies  now  first  appeared  in  America. 
The  right  to  declare  war,  to  raise  and  support  armies,  and  to  provide 
and  maintain  a  navy,  was  usurped  by  the  Executive ;  and  in  a  little 
more  than  two  months  a  land  and  naval  force  of  over  three  hundred 
thousand  men  was  in  the  field  or  upon  the  sea.  An  army  of  public 
plunderers  followed,  and  corruption  struggled  with  power  in  friendly 
strife  for  the  mastery  at  home. 

On  the  4th  of  July  Congress  met,  not  to  seek  peace ;  not  to  rebuke 
usurpation  nor  to  restrain  power  ;  not  certainly  to  deliberate  ;  not  even 
to  legislate,  but  to  register  and  ratify  the  edicts  and  acts  of  the  Execu- 
tive ;  and  in  your  language,  sir,  upon  the  first  day  of  the  session,  to  in- 
voke a  universal  baptism  of  fire  and  blood  amid  the  roar  of  cannon  and 
the  din  of  battle.  Free  speech  was  had  only  at  the  risk  of  a  prison  ; 
possibly  of  life.  Opposition  was  silenced  by  the  fierce  clamor  of  "  dis- 
loyalty." All  business  not  of  war  was  voted  out  of  order.  Five  hun- 
dred thousand  men,  an  immense  navy,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  rail- 
lions  of  money  were  speedily  granted.  In  twent}',  at  most  in  sixty  days, 
the  rebellion  was  to  be  crushed  out.  To  doubt  it  was  treason.  Abject 
submission  was  demanded.  Lay  down  your  arms,  sue  for  peace,  sur- 
render your  leaders — forfeiture,  death — this  was  the  only  language  heard 
on  this  floor.  The  galleries  responded ;  the  corridors  echoed ;  and 
contractors  and  placemen  and  other  venal  patriots  everywhere  gnashed 
upon  the  friends  of  peace  as  they  passed  by.  In  five  weeks  seventy- 
eight  public  and  private  acts  and  joint  resolutions,  with  declaratory 
resolutions,  in  the  Senate  and  House,  quite  as  numerous,  all  full  of 
slaughter,  were  hurried  through  without  delay  and  almost  without  de- 
bate. 

Thus  was  CIVIL  war  inaugurated  in  America.  Can  any  man  to-day 
see  the  end  of  it  ? 

And  now  pardon  me,  sir,  if  I  pause  here  a  moment  to  define  my  own 
position  at  that  time  upon  this  great  question. 

Sir,  I  am  one  of  that  number  who  have  opposed  abolitionism,  or  the 
political  development  of  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  North  and 
West,  from  the  beginning.  In  school,  at  college,  at  the  bar,  in  public 
assemblies,  in  the  Legislature,  in  Congress,  boy  and  man,  as  a  private 
citizen  and  in  public  life,  in  time  of  peace  and  in  time  of  war,  at  all 


422  vallandigham's  speeches. 

times  anrl  at  every  sacrifice,  I  have  fought  against  it.  It  cost  me  ten 
years'  exclusion  from  office  and  honor,  at  that  period  of  life  when  hon- 
ors are  sweetest.  No  matter :  I  learned  early  to  do  right  and  to  wait. 
Sir,  it  is  but  the  development  of  the  spirit  of  intermeddling,  whose 
children  are  strife  and  murder.  Cain  troubled  himself  about  the  sacri- 
fices of  Abel,  and  slew  him.  Most  of  the  wars,  contentions,  litigation, 
and  bloodshed,  from  the  beginning  of  time,  have  been  its  fruits.  The 
spirit  of  non-intervention  is  the  very  spirit  of  peace  and  concord.  I  do 
not  believe  that  if  slavery  had  never  existed  here  we  would  have  had 
no  sectional  controversies.  This  very  civil  war  might  have  happened 
fifty,  perhaps  a  hundred  years  later.  Other  and  stronger  causes  of  dis- 
content and  of  disunion,  it  may  be,  have  existed  between  other  States 
and  sections,  and  are  now  being  developed  every  day  into  maturity. 
The  spirit  of  intervention  assumed  the  form  of  abolitionism  because  sla- 
very was  odious  in  name  and  by  association  to  the  Northern  mind,  and 
because  it  was  that  which  most  obviously  marks  the  different  civilizations 
of  the  two  sections.  The  South  herself,  in  her  early  and  later  efforts  to 
rid  herself  of  it,  had  exposed  the  weak  and  offensive  parts  of  slavery  to 
tlie  world.  Abolition  intermeddling  taught  her  at  last  to  search  for  and 
defend  the  assumed  social,  economic,  and  political  merit  and  values  of 
the  institution.  But  there  never  was  an  hour  from  the  beginning  when 
it  did  not  seem  to  me  as  clear  as  the  sun  at  broad  noon,  that  the  agita- 
tion in  any  form,  in  the  North  and  West,  of  the  slavery  question,  must 
sooner  or  later  end  in  disunion  and  civil  war. 

This  was  the  opinion  and  prediction  for  years  of  Whig  and  Demo- 
cratic statesmen  alike ;  and  after  the  unfortunate  dissolution  of  the 
Whig  party  in  1854,  and  the  organization  of  the  present  Republican 
party  upon  an  exclusively  anti-slavery  and  sectional  basis,  the  event 
was  inevitable  ;  because,  in  the  then  existing  temper  of  the  public  mind, 
and  after  the  education  through  the  press,  and  by  the  pulpit,  the  lecture 
and  the  political  canvass  for  twenty  years,  of  a  generation,  taught  to  hate 
slavery  and  the  South,  the  success  of  that  party,  possessed,  as  it  was, 
of  every  engine  of  political,  business,  social,  and  religious  influence,  was 
certain.  It  was  only  a  question  of  time,  and  short  time.  Such  was  its 
strength,  indeed,  that  I  do  not  believe  that  the  union  of  the  Democratic 
party,  in  1860,  on  any  candidate,  even  though  he  had  been  supported 
also  by  the  entire  so-called  conservative  or  anti-Lincoln  vote  of  the 
country,  would  have  availed  to  defeat  it ;  and  if  it  had,  the  success  of 
the  Abolition  party  would  only  have  been  postponed  four  years  longer. 
The  disease  had  fastened  too  strongly- upon  the  system  to  be  healed 
until  it  had  run  its  course.  The  doctrine  of  the  "  irrepressible  conflict" 
had  been  taught  too  long,  and  accepted  too  widely  and  earnestly,  to  die 
out  until  it  should  culminate  in  secession  and  disunion ;  and,  if  coercion 


THE   OEEAT    CIVIL    WAR    IN   AMERICA.  42 


Q 


were  resorted  to,  then  in  civil  war.  I  believed  from  the  first  that  it 
was  the  purpose  of  some  of  the  apostles  of  that  doctrine  to  force  a  col- 
lision between  the  North  and  the  South,  either  to  bring  about  a  sepa- 
ration, or  to  find  a  vain,  but  bloody  pretext  for  abolishing  slavery  in  the 
States.  In  any  event,  I  knew,  or  I  thought  I  knew,  that  the  end  was 
certain  collision,  and  death  to  the  Union. 

Believing  thus,  I  have  for  years  past  denounced  those  who  taught 
that  doctrine  with  all  the  vehemence,  the  bitterness,  if  you  choose — I 
thought  it  a  righteous,  a  patriotic  bitterness — of  an  earnest  and  impas- 
sioned nature.     Thinking  thus,  1  forewarned  all  who  believed  the  doc- 
trine, or  followed  the  party  which  taught  it,  with  a  sincerity  and  a  depth 
of  conviction  as  profound  as  ever  penetrated  the  heart  of  man.     And 
when,  for  eight  years  past,  over  and  over  again,  I  have  proclaimed  to 
the  people  that  the  success  of  a  sectional  anti-slavery  party  would  be 
the  beginning  of  disunion  and  civil  war  in  America,  I  believed  it.     I 
did.     1  had  read  history,  and  studied  human  nature,  and  meditated  for 
years  upon  the  character  of  our  institutions  and  form  of  government, 
and  of  the  people  South  as  well  as  North ;  and  I  could  not  doubt  the 
event.     But  the  people  did  not  believe  me,  nor  those  older  and  wiser 
and   greater  than   I.      They  rejected    the  prophecy   and    stoned  the 
prophets.     The  candidate  of  the  Republican  party  was  chosen  President. 
Secession  began.     Civil  war  was  imminent.     It  was  no  petty  insurrec- 
tion ;  no  temporary  combination  to  obstruct  the  execution  of  the  laws 
in  certain  States ;  but  a  revolution,  systematic,  deliberate,  determined, 
and  with  the  consent  of  a  majority  of  the  people  of  each  State  which 
seceded.     Causeless  it  may  have  been ;  wicked  it  may  have  been ;  but 
there  it  was ;  not  to  be  railed  at,  still  less  to  be  laughed  at,  but  to  be 
dealt  with  by  statesmen  as  a  fact.     No  display  of  vigor  or  force  alone, 
however  sudden  or  great,  could  have  arrested  it,  even  at  the  outset.     It 
was  disunion  at  last.     The  wolf  had  come.     But  civil  war  had  not  yet 
followed.     In  my  deliberate  and  most  solemn  judgment,  there  was  but 
one  wise  and  masterly  mode  of  dealing  with  it.     Non-coercion  would 
avert  civil  war,  and  compromise  crush  out  both  Abolitionism  and  Seces- 
sion.    The  parent  and  the  child  would  thus  both  perish.     But  a  resort 
to  force  would  at  once  precipitate  war,  hasten  secession,  extend  disunion, 
and,  while  it  lasted,  utterly  cut  off  all  hope  of  compromise.     I  believed 
that  war,  if  long  enough  continued,  would  be  final,  eternal  disunion.     I 
said  it ;  I  meant  it ;  and,  accordingly,  to  the  utmost  of  my  ability  and 
influence,  I  exerted  myself  in  behalf  of  the  policy  of  non-coercion.     It 
was  adopted  by  Mr.  Buchanan's  Administration,  with  the  almost  unan- 
imous consent  of  the  Democratic  and  Constitutional  Union  parties  in 
and  out  of  Congress ;  and,  in  February,  with  the  concurrence  of  a  ma- 
jority of  the  Republican  party  in  the  Senate  and  this  House.     But  that 


424  vallandigiia:\i's  speeches. 

party,  most  disastrously  for  the  country,  rofiised  all  cotnpromise.  How, 
indeeil,  could  tliey  accept  any?  That  which  the  South  demanded,  and 
the  Democratic  and  conservative  parties  of  the  North  and  West  were 
willinjjj  to  praiit,  and  which  alone  could  avail  to  keep  the  peace  and  save 
the  Union,  implied  a  surrender  of  the  sole  vital  element  of  the  party 
and  its  platform — of  the  very  principle,  in  fact,  upon  which  it  had  just 
won  the  contest  for  the  Presidency ;  not,  indeed,  by  a  majority  of  the 
popular  vote — the  majority  was  nearly  a  million  against  it — but  under 
the  forms  of  the  Constitution.  Sir,  the  crime,  the  "  high  crime"  of  the 
Republican  party  was  not  so  much  its  refusal  to  compromise,  as  its 
original  organization  upon  a  basis  and  doctrine  wholly  inconsistent  with 
the  stability  of  the  ConstitAtion  and  the  peace  of  the  Union. 

But  to  resume  :  the  session  of  Congress  expired.  The  President  elect 
was  inaugurated ;  and  now,  if  only  the  policy  of  non-coercion  could  be 
maintained,  and  war  thus  averted,  time  would  do  its  work  in  the  North 
and  the  South,  and  final  peaceable  adjustment  and  reunion  be  secured. 
Some  time  in  March  it  was  announced  that  the  President  had  resolved 
to  continue  the  policy  of  his  predecessor,  and  even  go  a  step  further, 
and  evacuate  Sumter  and  the  other  Federal  forts  and  arsenals  in  the 
seceded  States.  His  own  party  acquiesced  ;  the  whole  country  rejoiced. 
The  policy  of  non-coercion  had  triumphed,  and  for  once,  sir,  in  ray  life, 
I  found  myself  in  an  immense  majority.  No  man  then  pretended  that 
a  Union  founded  in  consent,  could  be  cemented  by  force.  Nay,  more, 
the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  State  went  further.  Said  Mr.  Sew- 
ard, in  an  official  diplomatic  letter  to  Mr,  Adams : 

"For  these  reasons,  he  (the  President)  would  not  be  disposed  to  reject  a  cardinal 
dogma  of  theirs  (the  Secessionists),  namely,  that  the  Federal  Government  could 
not  reduce  the  seceding  States  to  obedience  by  conquest,  although  he  were  disposed 
to  question  that  proposition.  But  in  fact  the  President  wiUingly  accepts  it  as  true. 
Only  an  imperial  or  despotic  government  could  subjugate  thoroughly  disaflected 
and  insurrectionary  members  of  the  State." 

Pardon  me,  sir,  but  I  beg  to  know  whether  this  conviction  of  the 
President  and  his  Secretary,  is  not  the  philosophy  of  the  persistent  and 
most  vigorous  etforts  made  by  this  Administration,  and  first  of  all 
through  this  same  Secretary,  the  moment  war  broke  out,  and  ever  since 
till  the  late  elections,  to  convert  the  United  States  into  an  imperial  or 
despotic  government  ?     But  Mr.  Seward  adds,  and  I  agree  with  him  : 

"  This  Federal  Republican  system  of  ours  is,  of  all  forms  of  government,  the  very 
one  which  is  most  unfitted  for  such  a  labor." 

This,  sir,  was  on  the  10th  of  April,  and  yet  that  very  day  the  fleet 
was  under  sail  for  Charleston.  The  policy  of  peace  had  been  abandoned. 
Collision  followed;  the  militia  were  ordered  out;  civil  war  began. 


THE   GEEAT    CIVIL   WAR   IN   AMERICA.  425 

'  Now,  sir,  on  the  14tli  of  April,  I  believed  that  coercion  would  bring 
on  war,  and  war  disunion.  More  than  that,  I  behoved,  what  you  all  in 
your  hearts  believe  to-day,  that  the  South  could  never  be  conquered — 
never.  And  not  that  only,  but  I  was  satisfied — and  you  of  the  Aboli- 
tion party  have  now  proved  it  to  the  world — that  the  secret  but  real 
purpose  of  the  war  was  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States.  In  any  event, 
I  did  not  doubt  that,  whatever  might  be  the  momentary  impulses  of 
those  in  power,  and  whatever  pledges  they  might  make,  in  the  midst 
of  the  fury,  for  the  Constitution,  the  Union,  and  the  flag,  yet  the  natu- 
ral and  inexorable  logic  of  revolutions  would,  sooner  or  later,  drive 
them  into  that  policy,  and  with  it  to  its  final  but  inevitable  result,  the 
change  of  our  present  deraocratical  form  of  government  into  an  imperial 
despotism. 

.  These  were  my  convictions  on  the  14th  of  April.  Had  I  changed 
them  on  the  15th,  when  I  read  the  President's  proclamation,  and  be- 
come convinced  that  I  had  been  wrong  all  ray  life,  and  that  all  history 
was  a  fable,  and  all  human  nature  false  in  its  development  from  the 
beginning  of  time,  I  would  have  changed  my  public  conduct  also. 
But  my  convictions  did  not  change.  I  thought  that,  if  war  was  dis- 
union on  the  14th  of  April,  it  was  equally  disunion  on  the  15th,  and  at 
all  times.  Believing  this,  I  could  not,  as  an  honest  man,  a  Union  man, 
and  a  patriot,  lend  an  active  support  to  the  war;  and  I  did  not.  I  had 
rather  ray  right  arm  were  plucked  from  its  socket  and  cast  into  eternal 
burnings  than,  with  my  convictions,  to  have  thus  defiled  my  soul  with 
the  guilt  of  moral  perjury.  Sir,  I  was  not  taught  in  that  school  which 
proclaims  that  "  all  is  fair  in  politics."  I  loathe,  abhor,  and  detest  the 
execrable  maxim.  I  stamp  upon  it.  No  State  can  endure  a  single  gen- 
eration whose  public  men  practise  it.  Whoever  teaches  it  is  a  corrupter 
of  youth.  AVhat  we  most  want  in  these  times,  and  at  all  times,  is 
honest  and  independent  public  men.  That  man  who  is  dishonest  in 
politics,  is  not  honest  at  heart  in  any  thing;  and  sometimes  moral 
cowardice  is  dishonesty.  Do  right ;  and  trust  to  God,  and  truth,  and 
the  people.  Perish  office,  perish  honors,  perish  life  itself — but  do 
the  thing  that  is  right,  and  do  it  like  a  man.  I  did  it.  Certainly, 
sir,  I  could  not  doubt  what  he  must  suffer  who  dare  defy  the  opin- 
ions and  the  passions,  not  to  say  the  madness,  of  twenty  millions 
of  people.  Had  I  not  read  history  ?  Did  I  not  know  human  nature ! 
But  I  appealed  to  Time  ;  and  right  nobly  hath  the  avenger  answered 
me. 

I  did  not  support  the  war ;  and  to-day  I  bless  God,  that  not  the 
smell  of  so  nmch  as  one  drop  of  its  blood  is  upon  my  garments.  Sir, 
I  censure  no  brave  man  who  rushed  patriotically  into  this  war;  neither 
will  I  quarrel  with  any  one,  here  or  elsewhere,  who  gave  to  it  au  honest 


426  vallandigham's  speeches. 

support.     Had  thoir   convictions  been  mine,  I,  too,  would  doubtless 
have  done  as  they  did.     With  my  convictions  I  could  not. 

But  I  was  a  Keprcscntativc.  War  existed — by  whose  act  no  matter 
— not  mine.  The  President,  the  Senate,  the  House,  and  the  country, 
all  said  that  there  should  be  war — war  for  the  Union  ;  a  union  of 
consent  and  good-will.  Our  Southern  brethren  were  to  be  whipped 
back  into  love  and  fellowship  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  0,  mon- 
strous delusion  !  I  can  comprehend  a  war  to  compel  a  people  to  accept 
a  master ;  to  change  a  form  of  government ;  to  give  up  territory ;  to 
abolish  a  domestic  institution — in  short,  a  war  of  conquest  and  subjuga- 
tion ;  but  a  war  for  union  !  Was  the  Union  thus  made?  Was  it  ever 
thus  preserved  ?  Sir,  history  will  record  that,  after  nearly  six  thousand 
years  of  folly  and  wickedness  in  every  form  and  administration  of 
government — theocratic,  democratic,  monarchic,  oligarchic,  despotic,  and 
mixed — it  was  reserved  to  American  statesmanship,  in  the  nineteenth 
century  of  the  Christian  era,  to  try  the  grand  experiment,  on  a  scale 
the  most  costly  and  gigantic  in  its  proportions,  of  creating  love  by 
force,  and  developing  fraternal  affection  by  war  ?  And  history  will 
record,  too,  on  the  same  page,  the  utter,  disastrous,  and  most  bloody 
failure  of  the  experiment. 

But  to  return:  the  country  was  at  war;  and  I  belonged  to  that 
school  of  politics  which  teaches  that  when  we  are  at  war,  the  Govern- 
ment— I  do  not  mean  the  Executive  alone,  but  the  Government — is 
entitled  to  demand  and  have,  without  resistance,  such  number  of  men, 
and  such  amount  of  money  and  supplies  generally,  as  may  be  necessary 
for  the  war,  until  an  appeal  can  be  had  to  the  people.  Before  that 
tribunal  alone,  in  the  first  instance,  must  the  question  of  the  continuance 
of  the  war  be  tried.  This  wns  Mr.  Calhoun's  opinion,  and  he  laid  it 
down  very  broadly  and  strongly  in  a  speech  on  the  loan  bill,  in  1841. 
Speaking  of  supplies,  he  said : 

"I  hold  that  there  is  a  distinction  in  this  respect  between  a  state  of  peace  and  • 
war.  In  the  latter,  the  right  of  withholding  supplies  ought  ever  to  be  lield  sub- 
ordinate to  the  energetic  and  successful  prosecution  of  the  war.  I  go  further,  and 
regard  the  witholding  supplies,  with  a  view  of  forcing  the  country  into  a  diihonorahlc 
peace,  as  not  only  to  be  what  it  has  been  called,  moral  treason,  but.  very  little 
short  of  actual  treason  itself." 

Upon  this  principle,  sir,  he  acted  afterwards  in  the  Mexican  War. 
Speaking  of  that  war,  in  1847,  he  said: 

"  Every  Senator  knows  that  I  was  opposed  to  the  war ;  but  none  knows  but 
myself  the  depth  of  that  opposition.  "With  my  conception  of  its  character  and  con- 
sequences,  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  vote  for  it." 

And  again,  in  1848  : 


THE    GEE  AT    CIVIL    WAR    DT   AMERICA.  427 

"But,  after  the  war  was  declared,  by  authority  of  the  Government,  I  acquiesced 
in  what  I  could  not  prevent,  and  which  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  arrest:  and  I  then 
felt  it  to  be  my  duty  to  limit  my  efforts  to  give  such  direction  to  the  war  as  would, 
as  far  as  possible,  prevent  the  evils  and  dangers  with  which  it  threatened  the  country 
and  its  institutions." 

Sir,  I  adopt  all  this  as  my  own  position  and  my  defence  ;  though, 
perhaps,  in  a  civil  war  I  might  fairly  go  further  in  opposition.  I  could 
not,  with  my  convictions,  vote  men  and  money  for  this  war,  and  I 
would  not,  as  a  Representative,  vote  against  them.  I  meant  that,  with- 
out opposition,  the  President  might  take  all  the  men  and  all  the  money 
he  should  demand,  and  then  to  hold  him  to  a  strict  accountability 
before  the  people  for  the  results.  Not  believing  the  soldiers  responsible 
for  the  war,  or  its  purposes,  or  its  consequences,  I  have  never  withheld 
my  vote  where  their  separate  interests  were  concerned.  But  I  have 
denounced,  from  the  beginning,  the  usurpations  and  the  infractions,  one 
and  all,  of  law  and  Constitution,  by  the  President  and  those  under 
him ;  their  repeated  and  persistent  arbitrary  arrests,  the  suspension  of 
habeas  corpus,  the  violation  of  freedom  of  the  mails,  of  the  private 
house,  of  the  press  and  of  speech,  and  all  the  other  multiplied  wrongs 
and  outrages  upon  public  liberty  and  private  right,  which  have  made 
this  country  one  of  the  worst  despotisms  on  earth  for  the  past  twenty 
months ;  and  I  will  continue  to  rebuke  and  denounce  them  to  the  end ; 
and  the  people,  thank  God !  have  at  last  heard  and  heeded,  and 
rebuked  them,  too.  To  the  record  and  to  time  1  appeal  again  for  my 
justification. 

And  now,  sir,  I  recur  to  the  state  of  the  Union  to-day.  What  is  it  ? 
Sir,  twenty  months  have  elapsed,  but  the  rebellion  is  not  crushed  out; 
its  military  power  has  not  been  broken ;  the  insurgents  have  not  dis- 
persed. The  Union  is  not  restored ;  nor  the  Constitution  maintained ; 
nor  the  laws  enforced.  Twenty,  sixty,  ninety,  three  hundred,  six 
hundred  days  have  passed ;  a  thousand  millions  been  expended ;  and 
three  hundred  thousand  lives  lost  or  bodies  mangled ;  and  to-day  the 
Confederate  flag  is  still  near  the  Potomac  and  the  Ohio,  and  the  Con- 
federate Government  stronger,  many  times,  than  at  the  beginning.  Not 
a  State  has  been  restored,  not  any  part  of  any  State  has  voluntarily 
returned  to  the  Union.  And  has  any  thing  been  wanting  that  Con- 
gress, or  the  States,  or  the  people  in  their  most  generous  enthusiasm, 
their  most  impassionate  patriotism,  could  bestow  ?  Was  it  power  ? 
And  did  not  the  party  of  the  Executive  control  the  entire  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, every  State  Government,  every  county,  every  city,  town,  and 
village  in  the  North  and  West  ?  Was  it  patronage  ?  All  belonged  to 
it.  Was  it  influence  ?  What  more  ?  Did  not  the  school,  the  college, 
the  church,  the  press,  the  secret  orders,  the  municipality,  the  corpora- 


428  vallakdigham's  speeches. 

tion,  railroads,  telegraphs,  express  companies,  the  voluntary  association, 
all,  all  yield  it  to  the  utmost?  Was  it  unanimity?  Never  was  an 
Administration  so  supported  in  England  or  America.  Five  men  and 
half  a  score  of  newspapers  made  up  the  Opposition.  Was  it  enthusiasm  ? 
The  enthusiasm  was  fanatical.  There  has  been  nothinfr  like  it  since 
the  Crusades.  Was  it  confidence?  Sir,  the  faith  of  the' people  ex- 
ceeded that  of  the  patriarch.  They  gave  up  Constitution,  law,  right, 
liberty,  all  at  your  demand  for  arbitrary  power  that  the  rebellion  might, 
as  you  promised,  be  crushed  uut  in  three  months,  and  the  Union 
restored.  Was  credit  needed  ?  You  took  control  of  a  country,  young, 
vigorous,  and  inexhaustible  in  wealth  and  resources,  and  of  a  Govern- 
ment almost  free  from  public  debt,  and  whose  good  faith  had  never 
been  tarnished.  Your  great  national  loan  bubble  failed  miserably,  as 
it  deserved  to  fail ;  but  the  bankers  and  merchants  of  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  and  Boston  lent  you  more  than  their  entire  banking  capital. 
And  when  that  failed  too,  you  forced  credit  by  declaring  your  paper 
promises  to  pay,  a  legal  tender  for  all  debts.  Was  money  wanted  ? 
You  had  all  the  revenues  of  the  United  States,  diminished  indeed,  but 
still  in  gold.  The  whole  wealth  of  the  country,  to  the  last  dollar,  lay  at 
your  feet.  Private  individuals,  municipal  corporations,  the  State  gov- 
ernments, all,  in  their  frenzy,  gave  you  money  or  means  with  reckless 
prodigality.  The  great  Eastern  cities  lent  you  1150,000,000.  Congress 
voted,  first,  6250,000,000,  and  next  $500,000,000  more  in  loans;  and 
then,  first  850,000,000,  next  $10,000,000,  then  890,000,000,  and,  in 
July  last,  8150,000,000  in  Treasury  notes ;  and  the  Secretary  has  issued 
also  a  paper  "  postage  currency,"  in  sums  as  low  as  five  cents,  limited 
in  amount  only  by  his  discretion.  Nay,  more :  already  since  the  4th 
of  July,  1861,  this  House  has  appropriated  82,01*7,864,000,  almost 
every  dollar  without  debate,  and  without  a  recorded  vote.  A  thousand 
millions  have  been  expended  since  the  15th  of  April,  1861  ;  and  a 
public  debt  or  liability  of  81,500,000,000  already  incurred.  And  to 
support  all  this  stupendous  outlay  and  indebtedness,  a  system  of  tax- 
ation, direct  and  indirect,  has  been  inaugurated,  the  most  onerous  and 
unjust  ever  imposed  upon  any  but  a  conquered  people. 

Money  and  credit,  then,  you  have  had  in  prodigal  profusion.  And 
were  men  wanted?  More  than  a  million  rushed  to  arms!  Seventy- 
five  thousand  first  (and  the  country  stood  aghast  at  the  multitude), 
then  eighty-three  thousand  more  were  demanded  ;  and  three  hundred 
and  ten  thousand  responded  to  the  call.  The  President  next  asked 
for  four  hundred  thousand,  and  Congress,  in  their  generous  con- 
fidence, gave  him  five  hundred  thousand ;  and,  not  to  be  outdone,  he 
took  six  hundred  and  thirty-seven  thousand.  Half  of  these  melted 
away  in  their  first  campaign ;  and  the  President  demanded  three  bun- 


THE    GREAT    CIVIL    WAE    IN"    AMERICA.  429 

dred  thousand  more  for  the  war,  and  then  drafted  yet  anotlier  three 
hundred  thousand  for  nine  months.  The  fabled  hosts  of  Xerxes 
have  been  outnumbered.  And  yet  victory,  strangely,  follows  the 
standard  of  the  foe.  From  Great  Bethel  to  Vicksburg,  the  battle 
has  not  been  to  the  strong.  Yet  every  disaster,  except  the  last,  has 
been  followed  by  a  call  for  more  troops,  and  every  time,  so  far,  they 
have  been  promptly  furnished.  From  the  beginning  the  war  has 
been  conducted  like  a  political  campaign,  and  it  has  been  the  folly 
of  the  party  in  power  that  they  have  assumed,  that  numbers  alone 
would  win  the  field  in  a  contest  not  with  ballots  but  with  musket 
and  sword.  But  numbers,  you  have  had  almost  without  number — the 
largest,  best  appointed,  best  armed,  fed,  and  clad  host  of  biave  men, 
well  organized  and  well  disciplined,  ever  marshalled.  A  Navy,  too, 
not  the  most  formidable  perhaps,  but  the  most  numerous  and  gallant, 
and  the  costliest  in  the  world,  and  against  a  foe,  almost  without  a 
navy  at  all.  Thus,  with  twenty  millions  of  people,  and  every  element 
of  strength  and  force  at  command — power,  patronage,  influence, 
unanimity,  enthusiasm,  confidence,  credit,  money,  men,  an  Army  and 
a  Navy  the  largest  and  the  noblest  ever  set  in  the  field,  or  afloat  upon 
the  sea;  with  the  support,  almost  servile,  of  every  State,  county,  and 
municipality  in  the  North  and  West,  with  a  Congress  swift  to  do  the 
bidding  of  the  Executive;  without  opposition  anywhere  at  home; 
and  with  an  arbitrary  power  which  neither  the  Czar  of  Russia,  nor 
the  Emperor  of  Austria  dare  exercise ;  yet  after  nearly  two  years  of 
more  vigorous  prosecution  of  war  than  ever  recorded  in  history ;  after 
more  skirmishes,  combats,  and  battles  than  Alexander,  Cfesar,  or  the 
first  Napoleon  ever  fought  in  any  five  years  of  their  military  career, 
you  have  utterly,  signally,  disastrously — I  will  not  say  ignominiously 
— failed  to  subdue  ten  millions  of  "  rebels,"  whom  you  had  taught 
the  people  of  the  North  and  West  not  only  to  hate,  but  to  despise. 
Rebels,  did  I  sny  ?  Yes,  your  fathers  were  rebels,  or  your  grand- 
fathers. He,  who  now  before  me  on  canvas  looks  down  so  sadly 
upon  us,  the  false,  degenerate,  and  imbecile  guardians  of  the  great 
Republic  which  he  founded,  was  a  rebel.  And  yet  we,  craillcd  our- 
selves in  rebellion,  and  who  have  fostered  and  fraternized  with  every 
insurrection  in  the  nineteenth  century  everywhere  throughout  the 
globe,  would  now,  forsooth,  make  the  word  "  rebel"  a  reproach. 
Rebels  certainly  they  are ;  but  all  the  persistent  and  stupendous 
eff"orts  of  the  most  gigantic  warfare  of  modern  times  have,  thi'ough 
your  incompetency  and  folly,  availed  nothing  to  crush  them  out,  cut 
off  though  they  have  been,  by  your  blockade,  from  all  the  world,  and 
dependent  only  upon  their  own  courage  and  resources.  And  yet,  they 
were  to   be   utterly  conquered   and    subdued    in    six    weeks,  or   three 


430  vallandigham's  speeches. 

months  !  Sir,  my  judgment  was  made  up,  and  expressed  from  the 
first.  I  learned  it  from  Chatham :  "  My  lords,  you  cannot  conquer 
America."  And  you  have  not  conquered  the  South.  You  never 
will.  It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  possible ;  much  less  under 
your  auspices.  But  money  you  have  expended  without  limit,  and 
blood  poured  out  like  water.  Defeat,  debt,  taxation,  sepulchres,  these 
are  your  trophies.  In  vain,  the  people  gave  you  treasure,  and  the 
soldier  yielded  up  his  life.  "  Fight,  tax,  emancipate,  let  these,"  said 
the  gentleman  from  Maine  (Mr.  Pike),  at  the  last  session,  "  be  the 
trinity  of  our  salvation."  Sir,  they  have  become  the  trinity  of  your 
deep  danmation.  The  war  for  the  Union  is,  in  your  hands,  a  most 
bloody  and  costly  failure.  The  President  confessed  it  on  the  22d 
of  September,  solemnly,  officially,  and  under  the  broad  seal  of  the 
United  States.  And  he  has  now  repeated  the  confession.  The  priests 
and  rabbis  of  abolition  taught  him  that  God  would  not  prosper  such 
a  cause.  ^Yar  for  the  Union  was  abandoned ;  war  for  the  negro 
openly  begun,  and  with  stronger  battalions  than  before.  With  what 
success?     Let  the  dead  at  Fredericksburg  and  Vicksburg  answer. 

And' now,  sir,  can  this  war  continue?  Whence  the  money  to  carry 
it  on  ?  •  Where  the  men  ?  Can  you  borrow  ?  From  whom  ?  Can 
you  tax  more  ?  Will  the  people  bear  it  ?  Wait  till  you  have  col- 
lected what  is  already  levied.  How  many  millions  more  of  "  legal 
tender" — to  day  forty-seven  per  cent,  below  the  par  of  gold — can 
you  float?  Will  men  enUst  now  at  any  price  ?  Ah,  sir,  it  is  easier 
to  die  at  home.  I  beg  pardon ;  but  I  trust  I  am  not  "  discouraging 
enlistments."  If  I  am,  then  first  arrest  Lincoln,  Stanton,  Halleck, 
and  some  of  your  other  generals,  and  I  will  retract ;  yes  I  will 
recant.  But  can  you  draft  again  ?  Ask  New  England — New  York 
Ask  Massachusetts.  Where  are  the  nine  hundred  thousand  ?  Ask 
not  Ohio — the  Northwest.  She  thought  you  in  earnest,  and  gave 
you  all,  all — more  than  you  demanded. 

"  The  wife  whose  babe  first  smiled  that  day, 

The  fair,  fond  bride  of  yester  eve, 
And  aged  sire  and  matron  gray, 
Saw  the  loved  warriors  haste  away, 

And  deemed  it  sin  to  grieve." 

Sir,  in  blood  she  has  atoned  for  her  credulity ;  and  now  there  is 
mourning  in  every  house,  and  distress  and  sadness  in  every  heart. 
Shall  she  give  you  any  more  ? 

But  ought  this  war  to  continue  ?  I  answer,  no — not  a  day,  not 
an  hour.  What  then?  Shall  we  separate?  Again  I  answer,  no, 
no,  no !  What  then  ?  And  now,  sir,  I  come  to  the  grandest  and 
most   solemn  problem  of  statesmanship  from  the  beginning  of  time ; 


THE    GEEAT    CIVIL    WAR   IN   AMEEICA.  431 

and  to  the  God  of  heaven,  illuminer  of  hearts  and  minds,  I  would 
humbly  appeal  for  some  measure,  at  least,  of  light  and  wisdom  and 
strength  to  explore  and  reveal  the  dark  but  possible  future  of  this 
land. 

CAN    THE     UNION    OF   THESE    STATES    BE    RESTORED  ?      HOW    SHALL    IT    BE 

DONE? 

And  why  not  ?  Is  it  historically  impossible  ?  Sir,  the  frequent 
civil  wars  and  conflicts  between  the  States  of  Greece  did  not  prevent 
their  cordial  union  to  resist  the  Persian  invasion ;  nor  did  even  'the 
thirty  years  Peloponnesian  war,  springing,  in  part,  from  the  abduc- 
tion of  slaves,  and  embittered  and  disastrous  as  it  was — let  Thucydi- 
des  speak — wholly  destroy  the  fellowship  of  those  States.  The  wise 
Romans  ended  the  three  years  Social  War,  after  many  bloody  battles 
and  much  atrocity,  by  admitting  the  States  of  Italy  to  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  Roman  citizenship — the  very  object  to  secure 
which  these  States  had  taken  up  arms.  The  border  wars  between 
Scotland  and  England,  running  through  centuries,  did  not  prevent 
the  final  union,  in  peace  and  by  adjustment,  of  the  two  kingdoms 
under  one  monarch.  Compromise  did  at  last  what  ages  of  coercion 
and  attempted  conquest  had  failed  to  eflfect.  England  kept  the 
crown,  while  Scotland  gave  the  king  to  wear  it;  and  the  memories 
of  Wallace,  and  the  Bruce  of  Bannockburn,  became  part  of  the 
glories  of  British  history.  I  pass  by  the  union  of  Ireland  with 
England — a  union  of  force,  which  God  and  just  men  abhor;  and 
yet  precisely  "the  Union  as  it  should  be"  of  the  Abolitionists  of 
America.  Sir,  the  rivalries  of  the  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster, 
filled  all  England  with  cruelty  and  slaughter;  yet  compromise  and 
intermarriage  ended  the  strife  at  last,  and  the  white  rose  and  the  red 
were  blended  in  one.  Who  dreamed  a  month  before  the  death  of 
Cromwell  that  in  two  years  the  people  of  England,  after  twenty 
years  of  civil  war  and  usurpation,  would,  with  great  unanimity, 
restore  the  house  of  Stuart,  in  the  person  of  its  most  worthless 
prince,  whose  father,  but  eleven  years  before,  they  had  beheaded  ? 
And  who  could  have  foretold,  in  the  beginning  of  1812,  that  within 
some  three  years,  Napoleon  would  be  in  exile  upon  a  desert  island, 
and  the  Bourbons  restored  ?  Armed  foreign  intervention  did  it ; 
but  it  is  a  strange  history.  Or  who  then  expected  to  see  a  nephew 
of  Napoleon,  thirty-five  years  later,  with  the  consent  of  the  people, 
supplant  the  Bourbon,  and  reign  Emperor  of  France?  Sir,  many 
States  and  people,  once  separate,  have  become  united  in  the  course 
of  ages,  through   natural  causes,  and  without  conquest ;  but  I  remem- 


432  vallandigham's  speeches. 

bcr  a  single  instance  only,  in  history,  of  States  or  peoples  once 
united,  and  speaking  the  same  language,  who  have  been  forced  per- 
manently asunder  by  civil  strife  or  war,  unless  they  were  separated 
by  distance  or  vast  natural  boundaries.  The  secession  of  the  Ten 
Tribes  is  the  exception ;  these  parted  without  actual  war ;  and  their 
subsequent  history  is  not  encouraging  to  secession.  But  when 
Moses,  the  greatest  of  all  statesmen,  would  secure  a  distinct  nation- 
ality and  government  to  the  Hebrews,  he  left  Egypt,  and  established 
his  people  in  a  distant  country.  In  modern  times,  the  Netherlands, 
three  centuries  ago,  won  their  independence  by  the  sword ;  but 
France  and  the  English  channel  separated  them  from  Spain.  So 
did  our  Thirteen  Colonies ;  but  the  Atlantic  ocean  divided  us  from 
England.  So  did  Mexico,  and  other  Spanish  colonies  in  America, 
but  the  same  ocean  divided  them  from  Spain.  Cuba  and  the  Cana- 
das  still  adhere  to  the  parent  governments.  And  who  now.  North 
or  South,  in  Europe  or  America,  looking  into  history,  shall  pre- 
sumptuously say,  that  because  of  civil  Avar  the  reunion  of  these  States 
is  impossible?  War,  indeed,  while.it  lasts,  is  disunion,  and,  if  it 
lasts  long  enough,  will  be  final,  eternal  separation  first,  and  anarchy 
and  despotism  afterward.  Hence,  I  would  hasten  peace  now,  to-day, 
by  every  honorable  appliance. 

Are  there  physical  causes  which  render  reunion  impracticable? 
None.  Where  other  causes  do  not  control,  rivers  unite ;  but 
mountains,  deserts,  and  great  bodies  of  water — oceani  dissociahiles — 
separate  a  people.  Vast  forests  originally,  and  the  lakes  now  also, 
divide  us — not  very  widely  or  wholly — from  the  Canadas,  though  we 
speak  the  same  language,  and  are  similar  in  manners,  laws,  and 
institutions.  Our  chief  naviorable  rivers  run  from  North  to  South. 
Most  of  our  bays  and  arms  of  the  sea  take  the  same  direction.  So 
do  our  ranges  of  mountains.  Natural  causes  all  tend  to  Union, 
except  as  between  the  Pacific  coast  and  the  country  east  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Atlantic.  It  is  "  manifest  destiny."  Union 
is  empire.  Hence,  hitherto  we  have  continually  extended  our  terri- 
tory, and  the  Union  with  it.  South  and  West.  The  Louisiana  pur- 
chase, Florida,  and  Texas  all  attest  it.  We  passed  desert  and 
forest,  and  scaled  even  the  Rocky  Mountains,  to  extend  the  Union  to 
the  Pacific.  Sir,  there  is  no  natural  boundary  between  the  North 
and  the  South,  and  no  line  of  latitude  upon  which  to  separate ;  and 
if  ever  a  line  of  longitude  shall  be  established  it  will  be  east  of  the 
Mississippi  valley.  The  Alleghanies  are  no  longer  a  barrier.  High- 
ways ascend  them  everywhere,  and  the  railroad  now  climbs  their 
summits,  and  spans  their  chasms,  or  penetrates  their  rockiest 
sides.     The  electric  telegraph  follows,  and,   stretching   its  connecting 


THE    GEE  AT   CIVIL    WAR    IN   AMERICA.  433 

wires  along  the    clouds,  there    mingles   its  vocal  lightnings  with    the 
fires  of  heaven. 

But  if  disunionists  in  the  East  will  force  a  separation  of  any  of  these 
States,  and  a  boundary,  purely  conventional,  is  at  last  to  be  marked  out, 
it  must,  and  it  will  be  either  from  Lake  Erie  upon  the  shortest  line  to 
the  Ohio  River,  or  from  Manhattan  to  the  Canadas. 

And  now,  sir,  is  there  any  difference  of  race  here  so  radical  as  to  for- 
bid reunion  ?  I  do  not  refer  to  the  negro  race,  styled  now,  in  unctuous 
official  phrase,  by  the  President,  "  Americans  of  African  descent." 
Certainly,  sir,  there  are  two  white  races, in  the  United  States,  both  from 
the  same  common  stock,  and  yet  so  distinct — one  of  them  so  peculiar — 
that  they  develop  different  forms  of  civilization,  and  might  belong, 
almost,  to  different  types  of  mankind.  I5ut  the  boundary  of  these  two 
races  is  not  at  all  marked  by  the  line  which  divides  the  slaveholding 
from  the  non-slaveholding  States.  If  race  is  to  be  the  geographical  limit 
of  disunion,  then  Mason  and  Dixon's  can  never  be  the  line. 

Next,  sir,  do  not  the  causes  which,  in  the  beginning,  impelled  to 
Union,  still  exist  in  their  utmost  force  and  extent  ?     What  were  they  ? 

First,  the  common  descent — and,  therefore,  consanguinity — of  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  stock.  Had  the 
Canadas  been  settled,  originally,  by  the  English,  they  would,  doubtless, 
have  followed  the  fortunes  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies.  Next,  a  common 
language,  one  of  the  strongest  of  the  ligaments  which  bind  a  people. 
Had  we  been  contiguous  to  Great  Britain,  either  the  causes  which  led 
to  a  separation  woQld  have  never  existed,  or  else  been  speedily  removed ; 
or,  afterward,  we  would  long  since  have  been  reunited  as  equals,  and 
with  all  the  rights  of  Englishmen.  And  along  with  these  were  sinnlar, 
at  least  not  essentially  dissimilar,  manners,  habits,  laws,  religion,  and  in- 
stitutions of  all  kinds,  except  one.  The  common  defence  was  another 
powerful  incentive,  and  is  named  in  the  Constitution  as  one  among  the 
objects  of  the  "more  perfect  Union"  of  1787.  Stronger  yet  than  all 
these,  perhaps,  but  made  up  of  all  of  them,  was  a  common  interest. 
Variety  of  climate  and  soil,  and,  therefore,  of  production,  implying,  also, 
extent  of  country,  is  not  an  element  of  separation,  but,  added  to  con- 
tiguity, becomes  a  part  of  the  ligament  of  interest,  and  is  one  of  its 
toughest  strands.  Variety  of  production  is  the  parent  of  the  earliest 
commerce  and  trade ;  and  these,  in  their  full  development,  are,  as  be- 
tween foreign  nations,  hostages  for  peace ;  and  between  States  and 
people  united,  they  are  the  firmest  bonds  of  union.  But,  after  all,  the 
strongest  of  the  many  original  impelling  causes  to  the  Union  was  the 
securing  of  domestic  tranquillity.  The  statesmen  of  1787  well  knew 
that  between  thirteen  independent  but  contiguous  States,  without  a 
natural  boundary,  and  with  nothing  to  separate  them,  except  the  ma- 
28 


434  yallandigiiam's  speeches. 

cluncrv  of  similar  fjovcrnmcnts,  there  must  be  a  perpetual,  in  fact,  an 
"irrepressible  contiict"  of  jurisdiction  and  interest,  which,  there  being 
no  other  common  arbiter,  could  only  be  terminated  by  the  conflict  of 
the  sword.  And  the  statesmen  of  1863  ought  to  know  that  two  or 
more  confederate  governments,  made  up  of  similar  States,  having  no 
natural  Ixnmdary  either,  and  separated  only  by  different  governments, 
cannot  endure  long  together  in  peace,  unless  one  or  more  of  them  be 
either  too  pusillanimous  for  rivalry,  or  too  insignificant  to  provoke  it,  or 
too  weak  to  resist  aggression. 

These,  sir,  along  with  the  establishment  of  justice,  and  the  securing 
of  tlic  general  welfare,  and  of  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and 
their  posterity,  made  up  the  causes  and  motives  which  impelled  our 
fathers  to  the  Union  at  first. 

And  now,  sir,  what  one  of  them  is  wanting?  What  one  diminished? 
On  the  contrary,  many  of  them  are  stronger  to-day  than  in  the  begin- 
ning. Migration  and  intermarriage  have  strengthened  the  ties  of  con- 
sanguinity. Commerce,  trade,  and  production,  have  immensely  multi- 
plied. Cotton,  almost  unknown  here  in  1787,  is  now  the  chief  product 
and  export  of  the  country.  It  has  set  in  motion  three-fourths  of  the 
spindles  of  Xew  England,  and  given  employment,  directly  or  remotely, 
to  full  half  the  sliipping,  trade,  and  commerce  of  the  United  States. 
More  than  that:  cotton  has  kept  the  peace  between  England  and  Amer 
ica  for  thirty  years ;  and,  had  the  people  of  the  North  been  as  wise  and 
practical  as  the  statesmen  of  Great  Britain,  it  would  have  maintained 
union  and  peace  here.  But  we  are  being  taught  in  our  first  century, 
and  at  our  own  cost,  the  lessons  which  England  learned  through  the 
long  and  bloody  experience  of  eight  hundred  years.  We  shall  be  wiser 
next  time.  Let  not  cotton  be  king,  but  peacemaker,  and  inherit  the 
blessing. 

A  common  interest,  then,  still  remains  to  us.  And  union  for  the 
common  defence,  at  the  end  of  this  war,  taxed,  indebted,  impoverished, 
exhausted,  as  both  sections  must  be,  and  with  foreign  fleets  and  armies 
around  us,  will  be  fifty-fold  more  essential  than  ever  before.  And 
finally,  sir,  without  union,  our  domestic  tranquillity  must  forever  remain 
unsettled.  If  it  cannot  be  maintained  within  the  Union,  how,  then, 
outside  of  it,  without  an  exodus  or  colonization  of  the  people  of  one 
section  or  the  other  to  a  distairt  country  ?  Sir,  I  repeat,  that  two  gov- 
ernments so  interlinked  and  bound  together  every  way,  by  physical  and 
social  ligaments,  cannot  exist  in  peace  without  a  common  arbiter.  Will 
treaties  bind  us?  What  better  treaty  than  the  Constitution?  What 
more  solemn,  more  durable?  Shall  we  settle  our  disputes  then  by  arbi- 
tration and  compromise  ?  Sir,  let  us  arbitrate  and  compromise  now, 
inside  of  the  Union.     Certainly  it  will  be  quite  as  easy. 


THE   GREAT   CIVIL    WAR   IN   AMERICA.  435 

And  now,  sir,  to  all  these  original  causes  and  motives  which  impelled 
to  Union  at  first,  must  be  added  certain  artificial  ligaments,  which  eighty 
years  of  association  under  a  common  Government  have  most  fully 
developed.  Chief  among  these  are  canals,  steam  navigation,  railroads, 
express  companies,  the  post-office,  the  newspaper  press,  and  that  ter- 
rible agent  of  good  and  evil  mixed — "  spirit  of  health,  and  yet  goblin 
damned,"  if  free,  the  gentlest  minister  of  truth  and  liberty :  when  en- 
slaved, the  sypplest  instrument  of  falsehood  and  tyranny — the  magnetic 
telegraph.  All  these  have  multiplied  the  speed  or  the  quantity  of  trade, 
travel,  communication,  migration,  and  intercourse  of  all  kinds,  between 
the  diflferent  States  and  sections ;  and  thus,  so  long  as  a  healthy  con- 
dition of  the  body-politic  continued,  they  became  powerful  cementing 
agencies  of  union.  The  numerous  voluntary  associations,  artistic,  lite- 
rary, charitable,  social,  and  scientific,  until  corrupted  and  made  fanatical ; 
the  various  ecclesiastical  organizations,  until  they  divided ;  and  the 
political  parties,  so  long  as  they  remained  all  national,  and  none  sec- 
tional, were  also  among  the  strong  ties  which  bound  us  together.  An^ 
yet  all  of  these,  perverted  and  abused  for  some  years  in  the  hands  of 
bad  or  fanatical  men,  became  still  more  powerful  instrumentalities  in  the 
fatal  work  of  disunion  ;  just  as  the  veins  and  arteries  of  the  human  body, 
designed  to  convey  the  vitalizing  fluid  through  every  part  of  it,  will  carry 
also,  and  with  increased  rapidity  it  may  be,  the  subtle  poison  which 
takes  life  away.  Nor  is  this  all.  It  was  through  their  agency  that  the 
imprisoned  winds  of  civil  war  were  all  let  loose  at  first  with  such  sudden 
and  appalling  fury ;  and,  kept  in  motion  by  political  power,  they  have 
ministered  to  that  fury  ever  since.  But,  potent  alike  for  good  and  evil, 
they  may  yet,  under  the  control  of  the  people,  and  in  the  hands  of  ^ise, 
good,  and  patriotic  men,  be  made  the  most  effective  agencies,  under 
Providence,  in  the  reunion  of  these  States. 

Other  ties,  also,  less  material  in  their  nature,  but  hardly  less  per- 
suasive in  their  influence,  have  grown  up  under  the  Union.  Long  asso- 
ciation, a  common  history,  national  reputation,  treaties  and  diplomatic 
intercourse  abroad,  admission  of  new  States,  a  common  jurisprudence, 
great  men  whose  names  and  fame  are  the  patrimony  of  the  whole  coun- 
try, patriotic  music  and  songs,  common  battle-fields,  and  glory  won 
under  the  same  flag.  These  make  up  the  poetry  of  the  Union  ;  and 
yet,  as  in  the  marriage  relation,  and  the  family,  with  similar  influences, 
they  are  stronger  than  hooks  of  steel.  He  was  a  wise  statesman,  though 
he  may  never  have  held  an  office,  who  said :  "  Let  me  write  the  songs 
of  a  people,  and  I  care  not  who  makes  their  laws."  Why  is  the  Mar- 
seillaise prohibited  in  France?  Sir,  Hail  Columbia  and  the  Star- 
Spangled  Banner — Pennsylvania  gave  us  one,  and  Maryland  the  other — 
have  done  more  for  the  Union  than  all  the  legislation  and  all  the  de- 


436  vallandigham's  speeches. 

bates  in  this  capital  for  forty  years ;  and  they  will  do  more  yet  again 
than  all  your  armies,  though  you  call  out  another  million  of  men  into 
the  field.  Sir,  I  would  add  "  Yankee  Doodle  ;"  but  first  let  me  be  as- 
sured that  Yankee  Doodle  loves  the  Union  more  than  he  hates  the 
slaveholder.* 

And  now,  sir,  I  propose  to  briefly  consider  the  causes  which  led  to 
disunion  and  the  present  civil  war;  and  to  inquire  whether  they  are 
eternal  and  ineradicable  in  their  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  powerful 
enough  to  overcome  all  the  causes  and  considerations  which  impel  to 
reunion. 

Having,  two  years  ago,  discussed  fully  and  elaborately  the  more 
abstruse  and  remote  causes  whence  civil  commotions  in  all  govern- 
ments, and  those  also  which  are  peculiar  to  our  complex  and  Federal 
system,  such  as  the  consolidating  tendencies  of  the  General  Govenmient, 
because  of  executive  power  and  patronage,  and  of  the  tariff,  and  taxa- 
tion and  disbursement  generally,  all  unjust  and  burdensome  to  the  West 
equally  with  the  South,  I  pass  them  by  now. 

"What  then,  I  ask,  is  the  immediate,  direct  canse  of  disunion  and  this 
civil  war  ?  Slavery,  it  is  answered.  Sir,  that  is  the  philosophy  of  the 
rustic  in  the  play — "  that  a  great  cause  of  the  night,  is  lack  of  the  sun." 
Certainly  slavery  was  in  one  sense — very  obscure,  indeed — -the  cause  of 
the  war.  Had  there  been  no  slavery  here,  this  particular  war  about 
slavery  would  never  have  been  waged.  In  a  like  sense,  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  was  the  cause  of  the  war  of  the  Crusades,  and  had  Troy  or 
Carthage  never  existed,  there  never  would  have  been  Trojan  or  Cartha- 
ginian war,  and  no  such  personages  as  Hector  and  Hannibal ;  and  no  Iliad 
or  -^neid  would  ever  have  been  written.  But  far  better  say  that  the 
negro  is  the  cause  of  the  war;  for  had  there  been  no  negro  here,  there 
would  be  no  war  just  now.  What  then  ?  Exterminate  him  ?  Who 
demands  it  ?  Colonize  him  ?  How  ?  Where  ?  When  ?  At  whose 
cost  ?     Sir,  let  us  have  an  end  of  this  folly. 

But  slavery  is  the  cause  of  the  war.  Why  ?  Because  the  South 
obstinately  and  wickedly  refused  to  restrict  or  abolish  it  at  the  demand 
of  the  philosophers  or  fanatics  and  demagogues  of  the  North  and  AVest. 
Then,  sir,  it  was  abolition,  the  purpose  to  abolish  or  interfere  with  and 
hem  in  slavery,  which  caused  disunion  and  war.  Slavery  is  only  the 
subject,  but  Abolition  the  cause  of  this  civil  war.  It  was  the  persistent 
and  determined  agitation  in  the  free  States  of  the  question  of  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  South,  because  of  the  alleged  "  irrepressible  conflict"  be- 
tween the  forms  of  labor  in  the  two  sections,  or,  in  the  false  and  mis- 

*  Iq  truth,  the  song  was  written  in  derision  by  a  British  oEQcer,  and  not  by  an 
American. 


THE    GREAT    CIVIL    WAR    IN    AMERICA.  437 

chievous  cant  of  the  day,  between  freedom  and  slavery,  that  forced  a 
collision  of  arms  at  last.     Sir,  that  conflict  Avas  not  confined  to  the  Ter- 
ritories,    It  was  expressly  proclaimed  by  its  apostles,  as  between  the 
States    also — against   the  institution  of   domestic  slavery  everywhere. 
But,  assuming  the  platforms  of  the  Republican  party  as  a  standard,  and 
stating  the  case  most  strongly  ii.  favor  of  that  party,  it  was  the  refusal 
of  the  South  to  consent  that  slavery  should  be  excluded  from  the  Ter- 
ritories, that  led  to  the  continued  agitation,  North  and  South,  of  that 
question,  and  finally  to  disunion  and  civil  war.     Sir,  I  will  not  be  an- 
swered now  by  the  old  clamor  about  "  the  aggressions   of  the   slave 
power."     That  miserable  spectre,  that  imreal  mockery,  has  been  exor- 
cised and  expelled  by  debt  and  taxation  and  blood.     If  that  power  did 
govern  this  country  for  the  sixty  years  preceding  this  terrible  revolu- 
tion, then  the  sooner  this  Administration  and  Government  return  to  the 
principles  and  policy  of  Southern  statesmanship,  the  better  for  the  coun- 
try ;    aud  that,   sir,  is  already,  or  soon  will  be,  the  judgment  of  the 
people.     But  I  deny  that  it  was  the  "  slave  power"  that  governed  for 
so  many  years,  and  so  wisely  and  well.     It  was  the  Democratic  party, 
and  its  principles  and  policy,  moulded  and  controlled,  indeed,  largely  by 
Southern   statesmen.     Neither  will  I  be  stopped  by  that  other  cry  of 
mingled   fanaticism    and   hypocrisy,  about  the  sin  and  barbarism  of 
African  slavery.     Sir,  I  see  more  of  barbarism  and  sin,  a  thousand  times, 
in  the  continuance  of  this  war,  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  the  break- 
ing up  of  this  Government,  and  the  enslavement  of  the  white  race,  by 
debt  and  taxes  and  arbitrary  power.     The  day  of  fanatics  and  sophists 
and  enthusiasts,  thank  God,  is  gone  at  last ;  and  though  the  age  of 
chivalry  may  not,  the  age  of  practical  statesmanship  is  about  to  return. 
Sir,  I  accept  the  language  and  intent  of  the  Indiana  resolution,  to  the 
full — "  that  in  considering  terms  of  settlement,  we  will  look  only  to  the 
welfare,  peace,  and  safety  of  the  white  race,  without  reference  to  the 
effect  that  settlement  may  have  upon  the.  condition  of  the  African." 
And  when  we   have  done  this,  my  word  for  it,  the  safety,  peace,  and 
welfare  of  the  African  will  have  been  best  secured.     Sir,  there  is  fifty- 
fold  less  of  anti-slavery  sentiment  to-day  in  the  West  than  there  was 
two  years  ago ;  and  if  this  war  be  continued,  there  will  be  still  less  a 
year  hence.     The  people  there  begin,  at  last,  to  comprehend,  that  do- 
mestic slavery  in  the  South  is  a  question,  not  of  morals,  or  religion,  or 
humanity,  but  a  form  of  labor,  perfectly  compatible  with  the  dignity  of 
free  white  labor   in  the  same    community,   and  with    national  vigor, 
power,   and  prosperity,  and  especially  with  military  strength.     They 
have  learned,  or  begin  to  learn,  that  the  evils  of  the  system  affect  the 
-  master  alone,  or  the  community  and  State  in  which  it  exists ;  and  that 
we  of  the  free  States  partake  of  all  the  material  benefits  of  the  iustitu- 


438  VALLANDIGHA:\rS    SrKECHES. 

tion,  unmixed  with  any  part  of  its  mischief.     They  believe,  also,  in  the 
subordination  of  the  negro  race  to  the  wlute,  where  they  both  exist  to- 
gether, and  that  the  condition  of  subordination,  as  established  in  the 
South,  is  far  better  every  way,  for  the  negro,  than  the  hard  servitude  of 
poverty,  degradation,  and  crime,  to  which  he  is  subjected  in  the  free  States. 
All  this,  sir,  may  be  "  pro-slaveryisin,"  if  there  be  such  a  woixl.     Per- 
haps it  is  ;  but  the  people  of  the  West  begin  now  to  think  it  wisdom 
and  good  sense.     We  will  not  establish  slavery  in   our  own  midst; 
neither  will  we  abolish  it,  or  interfere  with  it  outside  of  our  own  Umits. 
Sir,  an  anti-slavery  paper  in  New  York  {the  Tribune),  the  most  in- 
fluential, and  therefore,  most  dangerous,  of  all  of  that  class — it  would  ex- 
hibit more  of  dignity,  and  command  more  of  influence,  if  it  were  always 
to  discuss  public  questions  and  public  men  with  decent  respect — laying 
aside  now  the  epithets  of  "  secessionist"  and  "  traitor,"  has  returned  to 
its  ancient  political   nomenclature,  and   calls  certain   members  of  this 
House  "  pro-slavery."     Well,  sir,  in  the  old  sense  of  the  term,  as  ap- 
plied to  the  Democratic  party,  I  will  not  object.     I  said,  years  ago,  and 
it  is  a  fitting  time  now  to  repeat  it : 

"  If  to  love  my  country ;  to  cherish  the  Union ;  to  revere  the  Constitution  ;  if 
to  abhor  the  madness,  and  hate  the  treason,  which  would  lift  up  a  sacrilegious 
hand  against  either;  if  to  read  that  in  the  past,  to  behold  it  in  the  present,  to 
foresee  it  in  tlie  future  of  this  land,  which  is  of  more  value  to  us,  and  to  the 
world,  for  ages  to  come,  than  ail  the  multiplied  millions  who  have  inhabited  Africa, 
from  the  creation  to  this  day  I — if  this  it  is  to  be  pro-slavery,  then  in  every  nerve, 
fibre,  vein,  bone,  tendon,  joint,  and  ligament,  from  the  topmost  hair  of  the  head 
to  the  last  extremity  of  the  foot,  I  am  all  over  and  altogether  a  pro-slavery  man." 

« 

• 

And  now,  sir,  I  come  to  the  great  and  controlling  question,  within 
which  the  whole  issue  of  union  or  disunion  is  bound  up.  Is  there  "  an 
irrepressible  conflict"  between  the  slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding 
States  ?  Must  "  the  cotton  and  rice  fields  of  South  Carolina,  and  the 
sugar  plantations  of  Louisiana,"  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Seward,  "  be 
ultimately  tilled  by  free  labor,  and  Charleston  and  New  Orleans  become 
marts  for  legitimate  merchandise  alone,  or  else  the  rye-fields  and  wheat- 
fields  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  again  be  surrendered  by  their 
farmers  to  slave  culture  and  the  production  of  slaves,  and  Boston  and 
New  York  become,  once  more,  markets  for  trade  in  the  bodies  and 
souls  of  men  ?"  If  so,  then  there  is  an  end  of  all  union,  and  forever. 
You  cannot  abolish  slavery  by  the  sword  ;  still  less  by  proclamations, 
though  the  President  were  to  "  proclaim"  every  month.  Of  what  pos- 
sible avail  was  his  proclamation  of  September  ?  Did  the  South  sub- 
mit ?  Was  she  even  alarmed  ?  And  yet,  he  has  now  fulrained  an- 
other "  bull  against  the  comet" — hrutum  fulinen — and  threatening 
servile  insurrection,  with  all  its  horrors,  has  yet  coolly  appealed  to  the 


THE    GEE  AT   CIVIL    WAE    IN   AMEKICA.  439 

judgment  of  mankind,  and  invoked  the  blessing  of  the  God  of  peace 
and  love !  But  declaring  it  a  military  necessity,  an  essential  measure 
of  war,  to  subdue  the  rebels,  yet,  with  admirable  wisdom,  he  expressly 
exempts  from  its  operation  the  only  States,  and  parts  of  States,  in  the 
South,  where  he  has  the  military  power  to  execute  it. 

Neither,  sir,  can  you  abolish  slavery  by  argument.  As  well  attempt 
to  abolish  marriage,  or  the  relation  of  paternity.  The  South  is  resolved 
to  maintain  it  at  every  hazard,  and  by  every  sacrifice  ;  and  if  "  this 
Union  cannot  endure,  part  slave  and  part  free,"  then  it  is  already  and 
finally  dissolved.  Talk  not  to  me  of  "  West  Virginia."  Tell  me  not 
of  Missouri  trampled  under  the  feet  of  your  soldiery.  As  well  talk  to 
me  of  Ireland.  Sir,  the  destiny  of  those  States  must  abide  the  issue 
of  the  war.     But  Kentucky  you  may  find  tougher.     And  Maryland — 

"  E'en  in  her  ashes  live  their  wonted  fires  " 

Nor  will  Delaware  be  found  wanting  in  the  day  of  trial. 

But  I  deny  the  doctrine.  It  is  full  of  disunion  and  civil  war.  It  is 
disunion  itself.  Whoever  first  tau2:ht  it  ought  to  be  dealt  with  as  not 
only  hostile  to  the  Union,  but  an  enemy  of  the  human  race.  Sir, 
the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Constitution  is  the  perfect  and  eternal 
compatibility  of  a  union  of  States,  "  part  slave  and  part  free  ;"  else  the 
Constitution  never  would  have  been  framed,  nor  the  Union  founded ; 
and  seventy  years  of  successful  experiment  have  approved  the  wisdom 
of  the  plan.  In  my  deliberate  judgment,  a  confederacy,  made  up  of 
slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding  States,  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  the 
strongest  of  all  popular  governments.  African  slavery  has  been,  anid  is, 
eminently  conservative.  It  makes  the  absolute  political  equality  of  the 
white  race  everywhere  practicable.  It  dispenses  with  the  English  order 
of  nobility,  and  leaves  every  white  man,  North  and  South,  owning 
slaves  or  owning  none,  the  equal  of  every  other  white  man.  It  has  re- 
conciled universal  suffrage,  throughout  the  free  States,  with  the  stability 
of  government.  I  speak  not  now  of  its  material  benefits  to  the  North 
and  West,  which  are  many  and  more  obvious.  But  the  South,  too,  has 
profited  many  ways  by  a  union  with  the  non-slaveholding  States.  En- 
terprise, industry,  self-reliance,  perseverance,  and  the  other  hardy  vir- 
tues of  a  people  living  in  a  higher  latitude,  and  without  hereditary  ser- 
vants, she  has  learned  or  received  from  the  North.  Sir,  it  is  easy,  I 
know,  to  denounce  all  this,  and  to  revile  him  who  utters  it.  Be  it  so. 
The  English  is,  of  all  languages,  the  most  copious  in  words  of  bitterness 
and  reproach.     "  Pour  on  :  I  will  endure." 

Then,  sir,  there  is  not  an  "  irrepressible  conflict"  between  slave  labor 
and  free  laboi*.  There  is  no  conflict  at  all.  Both  exist  together  in  per- 
fect harmony  in  the  South.     The  master  and  the  slave,  the  white  laborer 


440  VALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECHES. 

and  the  black,  work  together  in  the  same  field,  or  the  same  shop,  and 
without  tlio  slightest  sense  of  degradation.  They  arc  not  equals,  either 
socially  or  politically.  And  why,  then,  cannot  Ohio,  having  only  free 
labor,  live  in  harmony  with  Kentucky,  which  has  both  slave  and  free? 
Above  all,  why  cannot  Massachusetts  allow  the  same  right  of  choice  to 
South  Carolina,  separated  as  they  are  a  thousand  miles,  by  other  States, 
who  would  keep  the  peace,  and  live  in  good-will  ?  Why  this  civil  war? 
Whence  disunion?  Not  from  slavery — not  because  the  South  chooses 
to  have  two  kinds  of  labor  instead  of  one — but  from  sectionalism,  al- 
ways and  everywhere  a  disintegrating  principle.  Sectional  jealousy  and 
hate — these,  sir,  are  the  only  elements  of  conflict  between  these  States ; 
and,  though  powerful,  they  are  yet  not  at  all  irrepressible.  They  exist 
between  families,  communities,  towns,  cities,  counties,  and  States ;  and 
if  not  I'epressed,  would  dissolve  all  society  and  government.  They 
exist,  also,  between  other  sections  than  the  North  and  South.  Section- 
alism East,  many  years  ago,  saw  the  South  and  West  united  by  the  ties 
of  geographical  position,  migration,  intermarriage,  and  interest,  and 
thus  strong  enough  to  control  the  power  and  policy  of  the  Union.  It 
found  us  divided  only  by  different  forms  of  labor,  and,  with  consum- 
mate, but  most  guilty  sagacity,  it  seized  upon  the  question  of  slavery  as 
the  surest  and  most  powerful  instrumentality  by  which  to  separate  the 
West  from  the  South,  and  bind  her  wholly  to  the  North.  Encouraged 
every  way,  from  abroad,  by  those  who  were  jealous  of  our  prosperity 
and  greatness,  and  who  knew  the  secret  of  our  strength,  it  proclaimed 
the  "  irrepressible  conflict"  between  slave  labor  and  free  labor.  It 
taught  the  people  of  the  North  to  forget  both  their  duty  and  their  in- 
terests ;  and,  aided  by  the  artificial  ligaments  and  influences,  which 
money  and  enterprise  had  created  between  the  seaboard  and  the  North- 
west, it  persuaded  the-people  of  that  section,  also,  to  yield  up  every  tie 
which  binds  them  to  the  great  \alley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  to  join, 
their  political  fortunes  especially,  wholly  with  the  East.  It  resisted  the 
fuQfitive  slave  law,  and  demanded  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  all  the 
Territories,  and  from  this  District,  and  clamored  against  the  admission 
of  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union.  It  organized  a  sectional  anti- 
slavery  party,  and  thus  drew  to  its  aid,  as  well  political  ambition  and  in- 
terest, as  fanaticism ;  and,  after  twenty-five  years  of  incessant  and  vehe- 
ment agitation,  it  obtained  possession,  finally,  and  upon  that  issue,  of 
the  Federal  Government,  and  of  every  State  government.  North  and 
West.  And,  to-day,  we  are  in  the  mid§t  of  the  greatest,  most  cruel, 
most  destructive  civil  war  ever  waged.  But  two  years,  sir,  of  blood, 
and  debt,  and  taxation,  and  incipient  commercial  ruin,  are  teaching  the 
people  of  the  West,  and,  I  trust,  of  the  North,  also,  the  folly  and  mad- 
ness of  this  crusade  against  African  slavery,  and  the  wisdom  and  neces- 


THE    GREAT   CIVIL    WAK    IX    AMEEICA.  441 

sity  of  a  union  of  the  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it,  "  part  slave  and 
part  free." 

What  then,  sir,  with  so  many  causes  impelling  to  reunion,  keeps  us 
apart  to-day  ?  Hate,  passion,  antagonism,  revenge — all  heated  seven 
times  hotter  by  war.  Sir,  these,  Avliile  they  last,  are  the  most  powerful 
of  all  motives  with  a  people,  and  with  the  individual  man ;  hut,  fortu 
nately,  they  are  the  least  durable.  They  hold  a  divided  sway  in  the 
same  bosoms  with  the  nobler  qualities  of  love,  justice,  reason,  placabil- 
ity ;  and,  except  when  at  their  height,  are  weaker  than  the  sense  of  in- 
terest, and  always,  in  States,  at  least,  give  way  to  it  at  last.  No  states- 
man Avho  yields  himself  up  to  them  can  govern  wisely  or  well ;  and  no 
State  whose  policy  is  controlled  by  them  can  either  prosper  or  endure. 
But  war  is  both  their  offspring  and  their  aliment,  and,  while  it  lasts,  all 
other  motives  are  subordinate.  The  virtues  of  peace  cannot  flourish, 
cannot  even  find  development  in  the  midst  of  fighting ;  and  this  civil 
war  keeps  in  motion  all  the  centrifugal  forces  of  the  Union,  and  gives 
to  them  increased  strength  and  activity  every  day.  But  such,  and  so 
many  and  powerful,  in  my  judgment,  are  the  cementing  or  centripetal 
agencies  impelling  us  together,  that  nothing  but  perpetual  war  and 
strife  can  keep  us  always  divided. 

Sir,  I  do  not  under-estimate  the  power  of  the  prejudices  of  section 
or,  what  is  much  stronger,  of  race.  Prejudice  is  colder,  and,  therefore, 
more  durable  than  the  passions  of  hate  and  revenge,  or  the  spirit  of 
antagonism.  But,  as  I  have  already  said,  its  boundary  in  the  United 
States  is  not  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  long  standing  mutual  jeal- 
ousies of  New  England  and  the  South  do  not  primarily  grow  out  of 
slavery.  They  are  deeper,  and  will  always  be  the  chief  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  full  and  absolute  reunion.  They  are  founded  in  difierence  of 
manners,  habits,  and  social  life,  and  different  notions  about  politics, 
morals,  and  religion.  Sir,  after  all,  this  whole  war  is  not  so  much  one 
of  sections — least  of  all,  between  the  slaveholding  and  non-slaveholding 
sections — as  of  races,  representing  not  difference  in  blood,  but  mind  and 
its  development,  and  different  types  of  civilization.  It  is  the  old  con- 
flict of  the  Cavalier  and  the  Roundhead,  the  Liberalist  and  the  Puritan; 
or,  rather,  it  is  a  conflict,  upon  new  issues,  of  the  ideas  and  elements 
represented  by  those  names.  It  is  a  war  of  the  Yankee  and  the  South- 
ron. Said  a  Boston  writer,  the  other  day,  eulogizing  a  New  England 
officer  who  fell  at  Fredericksburg :  "  This  is  Massachusetts'  war ; 
Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina  made  it."  But,  in  the  beginning,  the 
Roundhead  outwitted  the  Cavalier,  and  by  a  skilful  use  of  slavery  and 
the  negro,  united  all  New  England  first,  and  afterwards  the  entire  North 
and  West,  ana  finally  sent  out  to  battle  against  him  Celt  and  Saxon, 
German  and  Knickerbocker,  Catholic  and  Episcopalian,  and  even  a  part 


442  vallandigham's  speeches. 

of  his  owu  liousehold,  and  of  the  descendants  of  his  own  stock.  Said. 
Mr.  JcfferscfH,  when  New  England  tlircatencd  secession,  some  sixty- 
years  ago:  "  No,  let  us  keep  the  Yankees  to  quarrel  with."  Ah,  sir,  he 
forgot  that  quarrelling  is  always  a  hazardous  experiment;  and,  after  some 
time,  the  countrymen  of  Adams  proved  themselves  too  sharp  at  that 
work  for  the  countrymen  of  Jefferson,  But  every  day  the  contest  now 
tends  agam  to  its  natural  and  original  elements.  In  many  parts  of  the 
Northwest — I  might  add,  of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York 
city — the  prejudice  against  the  "  Yankee"  has  always  been  almost  as 
bitter  as  in  the  South.  Suppressed  for  a  little  while  by  the  anti-slavery 
sentiment  and  the  war,  it  threatens  now  to  break  forth  in  one  of  those 
great,  but  unfortunate,  popular  uprisings,  in  the  midst  of  which  reason 
and  justice  are,  for  the  time,  utterly  silenced.  I  speak  advisedly,  and 
let  New  England  heed,  else  she,  and  the  whole  East,  too,  in  their  strug- 
gle for  power,  may  learn  yet,  from  the  West,  the  same  lesson  which 
civil  war  taught  to  Rome,  that  evulgato  imperii  arcano,  posse  principem 
alibi,  quam  Romce  fieri.  The  people  of  the  West  demand  peace,  and 
they  begin  to  more  than  suspect  that  New  England  is  in  the  way.  The 
storm  ra<Tes ;  and  they  believe  that  she,  not  slavery,  is  the  cause.  The 
ship  is  sore  tried  ;  and  passengers  and  crew  are  now  almost  ready  to 
propitiate  the  waves,  by  throwing  the  ill-omened  prophet  overboard. 
In  plain  English — not  very  classic,  but  most  expressive — they  threaten 
to  "  set  New  England  out  in  the  cold." 

And  now,  sir,  I,  who  have  not  a  drop  of  New  England  blood  in  my 
veins,  but  was  born  in  Ohio,  and  am  wholly  of  Southern  ancestry — with 
a  slight  cross  of  Pennsylvania  Seotch-Irisli — would  speak  a  word  to  the 
men  of  the  West  and  the  South,  in  behalf  of  New  England.  Sir,  some 
years  ago,  in  the  midst  of  high  sectional  controversies,  and  speaking  as 
a  Western  man,  I  said  some  things  harsh  of  the  North,  which  now,  in  a 
more  catholic  spirit,  as  a  United  States  man,  and  for  the  sake  of  reunion, 
I  Avould  recall.  My  projudices,  indeed,  upon  this  subject,  are  as  strong 
as  any  man's ;  but  in  this,  the  day  of  great  national  humiliation  and 
calamity,  let  the  voice  of  prejudice  be  hushed. 

Sir,  they  who  would  exclude  New  England  in  any  reconstruction  of 
the  Union,  assume  that  all  New  Englanders  are  "  Yankees"  and  Puritans, 
and  that  the  Puritan  or  pragmatical  element,  or  type  of  civilization,  has 
always  held  undisputed  sway.  Well,  sir,  Yankees,  certainly,  they  are, 
in  one  sense;  and  so  to  Old  England  we  are  all  Yankees,  North  and 
South;  and  to  the  South  just  now,  or  a  little  while  ago,  we,  of  the 
Middle  and  Western  States,  also,  are,  or  were,  Yankees,  too.  But  there 
is  really  a  very  large,  and  most  liberal  and  conservative  non-Puritan 
element  in  the  population  of  New  England,  which,  for  many  years, 
struggled  for  the  mastery,  and  sometimes  held  it.     It  divided  Maine, 


THE    GREAT   CIVIL   WAR   IX   AMERICA.  443 

New  Hampshire,  and  Connecticut,  and  once  controlled  Rhode  Island 
wholly.  It  held  the  sway  during  the  Revolution,  and  at  the  period 
when  the  Constitution  was  founded,  and  for  some  years  afterwards. 
Mr.  Calhoun  said,  very  justly,  in  1847,  that  to  the  wisdom  and  enlarged 
patriotism  of  Shernlan  and  Ellsworth,  on  the  slavery  question,  we  were 
indebted  for  this  admirable  Government,  and  that,  along  with  Paterson, 
of  New  Jersey,  "  their  names  ought  to  be  engraven  on  brass,  and  live 
forever."  And  Mr.  Webster,  in  1830,  in  one  of  those  grand  historic 
word-paintings,  in  which  he  was  so  great  a  master,  said  of  Massachusetts 
and  South  Carolina :  "  Hand  in  hand  they  stood  around  the  Adminis- 
tration of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own  great  arm  lean  on  them  for 
support."  Indeed,  sir,  it  was  not  till  some  thirty  years  ago  that  the 
narrow,  presumptuous,  intermeddling,  and  fanatical  spirit  of  the  old 
Puritan  element  began  to  reappear  in  a  form  very  much  more  aggressive 
and  destructive  than  at  first,  and  threatened  to  obtain  absolute  mastery 
in  Church,  and  School,  and  State.  A  little  earlier  it  had  struggled 
hard,  but  the  conservatives  proved  too  strong  for  it ;  and  so  long  as  the 
great  statesmen  and  jurists  of  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  survived, 
it  made  small  progress,  though  John  Quincy  Adams  gave  to  it  the 
strength  of  his  great  name.  But  after  their  death,  it  broke  in  as  a  flood, 
and  swept  away  the  last  vestige  of  the  ancient,  liberal,  and  tolerating 
conservatism.  Then  every  form  and  development  of  fanaticism  sprang 
up  in  rank  and  most  luxuriant  growth,  till  abolitionism,  the  chief  fungus 
of  all,  overspread  the  whole  of  New  England  first,  and  then  the  middle 
States,  and  finally  every  State  in  the  Northwest. 

Certainly,  sir,  the  more  liberal  or  non-Puritan  element  was  mainly, 
though  not  altogether,  from  the  old  Puritan  stock,  or  largely  crossed 
with  it.  But  even  within  the  first  ten  years  after  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrims,  a  more  enlarged  and  tolerating  civilization  was  introdiiced. 
Roger  Williams,  not  of  the  Mayflower,  though  a  Puritan  himself,  and 
thoroughly  imbued  with  all  its  peculiarities  of  cant  and  creed  and  form 
of  worship,  seems  yet  to  have  had  naturally  a  more  liberal  spirit ;  and, 
first,  perhaps,  of  all  men,  some  three  or  more  years  before  the  Ark  and 
the  Dove  touched  the  shores  of  the  St,  Mary's,  in  Maryland^  taught  the 
sublime  doctrine  of  freedom  of  opinion  and  practice  in  religion. 
Threatened  first  with  banishment  to  England,  so  as  to  "remove  as 
far  as  possible,  the  infection  of  his  principles,"  and,  afterward,  actually 
banished  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts,  because,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  sentence  of  the  General  Court,  "he  broached  and  divulged 
divers  new  and  strange  doctrines  against  the  authority  of  magistrates" 
over  the  religious  opinions  of  men,  thereby  disturbing  the  peace  of  the 
colony,  he  became  the  founder  of  Rhode  Island,  and,  indeed,  of  a  large 
part  of  New  England  society.     And,  whether  from  his  teachings  and 


444  vallandigham's  speeches. 

example,  and  in  the  persons  of  his  descendants,  and  those  of  his  asso- 
ciates, or  from  other  causes  and  another  stock,  there  has  always  been  a 
large  infusion  throughout  New  England  of  what  may  be  called  the 
Roger  Williams  element,  as  distinguished  from  the  extreme  Puritan 
or  Mayflower  and  Plymouth  Rock  type  of  the  New  Englauder ;  and 
its  influence,  till  late  years,  has  always  been  powerful. 

Sir,  I  would  not  deny  nor  disparage  the  austere  virtues  of  the  old 
Puritans  of  England  or  America.  But  I  do  believe  that,  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  no  community  could  exist  long  in  peace,  and  no  gov- 
ernment endure  long  alone,  or  become  great,  where  that  element,  in  its 
earliest  or  its  more  recent  form,  holds  supreme  control.  And,  it  is  my 
solemn  conviction,  that  there  can  be  no  possible  or  durable  reunion  of 
these  States,,  until  it  shall  have  been  again  subordinated  to  other  and 
more  liberal  and  conservative  elements,  and,  above  all,  until  its  worst 
and  most  mischievous  development,  Abolitionism,  has  been  utterly  ex- 
tinguished. Sir,  the  peace  of  the  Union  and  of  this  continent  demands 
it.  But,  fortunately,  those  very  elements  exist  abundantly  in  New  Eng- 
land herself;  and  to  her  I  look  with  confidence  to  secure  to  them  the 
mastery  within  her  limits.  In  fact,  sir,  the  true  voice  of  New  England 
has,  for  some  years  past,  been  but  rarely  heard,  here  or  elsewhere,  in 
public  affairs.  Men  now  control  her  politics,  and  are  in  high  places, 
State  and  Federal,  who,  twenty  years  ago,  could  not  have  been  chosen 
selectmen  in  old  Massachusetts.  But,  let  her  remember,  at  last,  her 
ancient  renown ;  let  her  turn  from  vain-glorious  admiration  of  the  stone 
monuments  of  her  heroes  and  patriots  of  a  former  age,  to  generous 
emulation  of  the  noble  and  manly  virtues  which  they  were  designed  to 
commemorate.  Let  us  hear  less  from  her  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and 
the  Mayflower  and  of  Plymouth  Rock,  and  more  of  Roger  Williams  and 
his  compatriots,  and  his  toleration.  Let  her  banish,  now  and  forever, 
her  dreamers  and  her  sophists  and  her  fanatics,  and  call  back  again  into 
her  State  administration,  and  into  the  national  councils,  "  her  men  of 
might,  her  grand  in  soul" — some  of  them  still  live — and  she  will  yet 
escape  the  dangers  which  now  threaten  her  with  isolation. 

Then,  sir,  while  I  am  inexorably  hostile  to  Puritan  domination  in 
religion  or  morals  or  literature  or  politics,  I  am  not  in  favor  of  the  pro- 
posed exclusion  of  New  England.  I  would  have  the  Union  as  it  was, 
and,  first,  New  England  as  she  was.  But  if  New  England  will  have  no 
union  with  slaveholders,  if  she  is  not  content  with  "  tfie  Union  as  it 
was,"  then,  upon  her  own  head  be  the  responsibility  for  secession ;  and 
there  will  be  no  more  coercion  now  ;  I  at  least,  will  be  exactly  con- 
sistent. 

And  now,  sir,  can  the  central  States,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and 
Pennsylvania,  consent  to  separation  ?     Can  New  York  city  I     Sir,  the 


THE    GEEAT    CIVIL    WAR    IN    AMERICA.  445 

trade  of  the  South  made  hor  largely  what  she  is.  She  was  tlie  factor 
and  banbcr  of  the  South.  Cotton  filled  her  harbor  with  shipping,  and 
her  banks  with  gold.  But  in  an  evil  hour,  the  foolish,  I  will  not  say 
bad  "  men  of  Gotham"  persuaded  her  merchant  princes — against  their 
first  Jesson  in  business — that  she  could  retain  or  force  back  the  Southern 
trade  by  war.  War,  indeed,  has  given  her,  just  now,  a  new  business 
and  trade,  greater  and  more  profitable  than  the  old ;  but  with  disunion, 
that,  too,  must  perish.  And  let  not  Wall  street,  or  any  other  great  in- 
terest, mercantile,  manufacturing,  or  commercial,  imagine  that  it  shall 
have  power  enough,  or  wealth  enough,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  reunion 
through  peace.  Let  them  learn,  one  and  all,  that  a  public  man,  who 
has  the  people  as  his  support,  is  stronger  than  they,  though  he  may  not 
be  worth  a  million,  nor  even  one  dollar.  A  little  while  ago  the  banks 
said  that  they  were  king,  but  President  Jackson  speedily  taught  them 
their  mistake.  Next,  railroads  assumed  to  be  king;  and  cotton  once 
vaunted  largely  his  kingship.  Sir,  these  are  only  of  the  royal  family — 
princes  of  the  blood.  There  is  but  one  king  on  earth.  Politics  is 
king. 

But  to  return :  New  Jersey,  too,  is  bound  closely  to  the  South,  and 
the  South  to  her;  and  more  and  longer  than  any  other  State,  she  re- 
membered both  her  duty  to  the  Constitution  and  her  interest  in  the 
Union.  And  Pennsylvania,  a  sort  of  middle  ground,  just  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  and  extending,  also,  to  the  West,  is  united  by 
nearer,  if  not  stronger  ties,  to  every  section  than  any  other  one  State, 
unless  it  be  Ohio.  She  was — she  is  yet — the  keystone  in  the  great  but 
now  crumbling  arch  of  the  Union.  She  is  a  border  State  ;  and,  moi'e 
than  that,  she  has  less  within  her  of  the  fanatical  or  disturbing  element 
than  any  of  the  States.  The  people  of  Pennsylvania  are  quiet,  peace- 
able, practical,  and  enterprising,  without  being  aggressive.  They  have 
more  of  the  honest  old  English  and  German  thrift  than  any  other.  No 
people  mind  more  diligently  their  own  business.  They  have  but  one 
idiosyncrasy  or  specialty — the  tariff;  and  even  that  is  really  far  more 
a  matter  of  tradition  than  of  substantial  interest.  The  industry,  enter- 
prise, and  thrift  of  Pennsylvania  are  abundantly  able  to  take  care  of 
themselves  against  any  competition.  In  any  event,  the  Union  is  of 
more  value,  many  times,  to  her,  than  any  local  interest. 

But  other  ties  also  bind  these  States — Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey, 
especially — to  the  South,  and  the  South  to  them.  Only  an  imaginary 
line  separates  the  former  from  Delaware  and  Maryland.  The  Delaware 
River,  common  to  both  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey,  flows  into  Dela- 
ware Bay.  The  Susquehanna  empties  its  waters,  through  Pennsylvania 
and  Maryland,  into  the  Chesapeake.  And  that  great  watershed  itself, 
extending  to  Norfolk,  and,  therefore,  almost  to  the  North  Carolina  line, 


446  vallandigham's  speeches. 

does  belonof,  and  must  ever  belono:,  in  common,  to  the  central  and 
southern  States,  under  one  government;  or  else  tlie  line  of  separation 
will  be  the  Potomac  to  its  head-waters.  All  of  Delaware  and  Mary- 
land, and  the  counties  of  Accomac  and  Northampton,  in  Virginia, 
•would,  in  that  event,  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  northern  confederacy. 
In  fact,  sir,  disagreeable  as  the  idea  may  be  to  many  within  their  limits, 
on  both  sides,  no  man  who  looks  at  the  map  and  then  reflects  upon 
history  and  the  force  of  natural  causes,  and  considers  the  present  actual 
and  the  future  probable  position  of  the  hostile  armies  and  navies  at  the 
end  of  this  war,  ought  for  a  moment  to  doubt  that  either  the  States  and 
counties  which  T  have  named,  must  go  with  the  North,  or  Pennsylvania 
and  New  Jersey  with  the  South.  Military  force  on  either  side  cannot 
control  the  destiny  of  the  States  lyinu  between  the  mouth  of  the  Chesa- 
peake  and  the  Hudson.  And  if  that  bay  were  itself  made  the  line, 
Delaware,  and  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland  and  Virginia,  would  be- 
long to  the  North ;  while  Norfolk,  the  only  capacious  harbor  on  the 
southeastern  coast,  must  be  commanded  by  the  guns  of  some  new  for- 
tress upon  Cape  Charles ;  and  Baltimore,  the  now  queenly  city,  seated 
then  upon  the  very  boundary  of  two  rival,  yes,  hostile,  confederacies, 
would  rapidly  I'all  into  decay. 

And  now,  sir,  I  will  not  ask  whether  the  Northwest  can  consent  to 
separation  from  the  South.  Never.  Nature  forbids.  We  are  only  a 
part  of  the  great  Valley  of  the  Mississippi.  There  is  no  line  of  latitude 
upon  which  to  separate.  Neither  party  would  desire  the  old  line  of 
86°  30'  on  both  sides  of  the  river;  and  there  is  no  natural  boundary 
east  and  west.  The  nearest  to  it  are  the  Ohio  and  Missouri  Rivers. 
But  that  line  would  leave  Cincinnati  and  St.  Louis,  as  border  cities, 
like  Baltimore,  to  decay,  and,  extending  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  length, 
would  become  the  scene  of  an  eternal  border  warfare,  without  example 
even  in  the  worst  of  times.  Sir,  we  cannot,  ought  not,  will  not,  sepa- 
rate from  the  South.  And  if  you  of  the  East  who  have  found  this  war 
against  the  South,  and  for  the  negro,  gratifying  to  your  hate  or  profit- 
able to  your  purse,  will  continue  it  till  a  separation  be  forced  between 
the  slaveholding  and  your  non-slaveholding  States,  then,  believe  me, 
and  accept  it,  as  you  did  not  the  other  solemn  wai'nings  of  years  past, 
the  dav  which  divides  the  North  from  the  South,  that  self-same  day 
decrees  eternal  divorce  between  the  West  and  the  East. 

Sir,  our  destiny  is  fixed.  There  is  not  one  drop  of  rain  which, 
descending  from  the  heavens  and  fertilizing  our  soil,  causes  it  to  yield 
an  abundant  harvest,  but  flows  into  the  Mississippi,  and  there  mingling 
with  the  waters  of  that  mighty  river,  finds  its  way,  at  last,  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  And  we  must  and  will  follow  it  with  travel  and  trade — not 
by  treaty,  but  by  right — freely,  peaceably,  and  without  restriction  or 


THE   GEEAT    CIVIL    WAR   IN   AMEEICA.  447 

tribute,  under  the  same  government  and  flag,  to  its  home  in  the  bosom 
of  that  gulf.  Sir,  we  will  not  remain,  after  separation  from  the  South, 
a  province  or  appanage  of  the  East,  to  bear  her  burdens  and  pay  her 
taxes;  nor,  hemmed  in  and  isolated  as  we  are,  and  without  a  sea-coast, 
could  we  long  remain  a  distinct  confederacy.  But  wherever  we  go, 
married  to  the  South  or  the  East,  we  bring  with  us  three-fourths  of  the 
territories  of  that  valley  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  it  may  be  to  the 
Pacific — the  grandest  and  most  magnificent  dowry  that  bride  ever  had 
to  bestow. 

Then,  sir,  New  England,  freed  at  last  from  the  domination  of  her 
sophisters,  dreamers,  and  bigots,  and  restored  to  the  control  once  more 
of  her  former  liberal,  tolerant,  and  conservative  civilization,  will  not 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  reunion  of  these  States  upon  terms  of  fair  and 
honorable  adjustment.  And  in  this  great  work  the  central  free  and 
border  slave  States,  too,  will  unite  heart  and  hand.  To  the  West  it  is 
a  necessity,  and  she  demands  it.  And  let  not  the  States  now  called 
Confederate  insist  upon  separation  and  independence.  What  did  they 
demand  at  first  ?  Security  against  Abolitionism  within  the  Union : 
protection  from  the  "  irrepressible  conflict,"  and  the  domination  of  the 
absolute  numerical  majority :  a  change,  of  public  opinion,  and  conse- 
quently of  political  parties  in  the  North  and  West,  so  that  their  local 
institutions  and  domestic  peace  should  no  longer  be  endangered.  And 
now,  sir,  after  two  years  of  persistent  and  most  gigantic  eftbrt  on  the  part 
of  this  Administration  to  compel  them  to  submit,  but  with  utter  and 
signal  failure,  the  people  of  the  free  States  are  now,  or  are  fast  becom- 
ing, satisfied  that  the  price  of  the  Union  is  the  utter  suppression  of 
Abolitionism  or  anti-slavery  as  a  political  element,  and  the  complete 
subordination  of  the  spirit  of  fanaticism  and  intermeddling  which  gave 
it  birth.  In  any  event,  they  are  ready^now,  if  I  have  not  greatly  mis- 
read the  signs  of  the  times,  to  return  to  the  old  constitutional  and  actual 
basis  of  fifty  years  ago :  three-fifths  rule  of  representation,  speedy  ren- 
dition of  fugitives  fi-om  labor,  equal  rights  in  the  Territories,  no  more 
slavery  agitation  anywhere,  and  transit  and  temporary  sojourn  with 
slaves,  without  molestation,  in  the  free  States.  Without  all  these  there 
could  be  neither  peace  nor  permanence  to  a  restored  union  of  States 
"part  slave  and  part  free."  With  it,  the  South,  in  addition  to  all  the 
other  great  and  multiplied  benefits  of  union,  would  be  far  more  secure 
in  her  slave  property,  her  domestic  institutions,  than  under  a  separate 
government.  Sir,  let  no  man,  North,  or  West,  tell  me  that  this  would 
perpetuate  African  slavery.  I  know  it.  But  so  does  the  Constitution. 
I  repeat,  sir,  it  is  the  price  of  the  Union.  Whoever  hates  negro  slavery 
more  than  he  loves  the  Union  must  demand  separation  at  last.  I  think 
that  you  can  never  abolish  slavery  by  fighting.     Certainly  you  never 


448  VALLANDIGHAM^S    SPEECHES. 

can  till  yon  have  first  destroyed  the  South,  and  then,  in  the  language, 
first  of  Mr.  Douglas  and  afterward  of  Mr.  Seward,  converted  this  Gov- 
ernment into  an  imperial  despotism.  And,  sir,  whenever  I  am  forced 
to  a  ciioice  between  the  loss,  to  my  own  country  and  race,  of  personal 
and  political  liberty,  with  all  its  blessings,  and  the  involuntary  domestic 
servitude  of  the  negro,  I  shall  not  hesitate  one  moment  to  choose  the 
latter  alternative.  The  sole  question,  to-day,  is  between  the  Union, 
with  slavery,  or  final  disunion,  and,  I  think,  anarchy  and  despotism.  I 
am  for  the  Union.  It  was  good  enough  for  my  fathers.  It  is  good 
enough  for  us,  and  our  children  after  us. 

And,  sir,  let  no  man  in  the  South  tell  me  that  she  has  been  invaded, 
and  that  all  the  horrors  implied  in  those  most  terrible  of  words,  civil 
war,  have  been  visited  upon  her.  I  know  that,  too.  But  we,  also,  of 
the  North  and  West,  in  every  State,  and  by  thousands,  who  have  dared 
so  much  as  to  question  the  principles  and  policy,  or  doubt  the  honesty, 
of  this  Administration  and  its  party,  have  suftered  every  thing  that  the 
worst  despotism  could  inflict,  except  only  loss  of  life  itself  upon  the 
scaffold.  Some  even  have  died  for  the  cause,  by  the  hand  of  the  assas- 
sin. And  can  we  forget?  Never,  never.  Time  will  but  burn  the 
memory  of  these  wrongs  deeper  into  our  hearts.  But  shall  we  break 
up  the  Union  ?  Siiall  we  destroy  the  Government,  because  usurping 
tyrants  have  held  possession,  and  perverted  it  to  the  most  cruel  of 
oppressions  ?  Was  it  ever  so  done  in  any  other  country  ?  In  Athens  ? 
Rome?  England?  Anywhere?  No,  sir;  let  us  ex])el  the  usurper, 
and  restore  the  Constitution  and  laws,  the  rights  of  the  States,  and  the 
liberties  of  the  people;  and  then,  in  the  country  of  our  fathers,  under 
the  Union  of  our  fathers,  and  the  old  flaor — the  symbol  once  ajrain  of 
the  free  "and  the  brave — let  us  fulfil  the  grand  mission  which  Providence 
has  appointed  for  us  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

And  now,  sir,  if  it  be  the  will  of  all  sections  to  unite,  then  upon  what 
terms?  Sir,  between  the  South  and  most  of  the  States  of  the  North, 
and  all  of  the  West,  there  is  but  one  subject  in  controversy — slavery. 
It  is  the  only  question,  said  Mr.  Calhoun,  twenty-five  years  ago,  of  suffi- 
cient magnitude  and  potency  to  divide  this  Union ;  and  divide  it  it 
will,  he  added,  or  drench  the  country  in  blood,  if  not  arrested.  It  has 
done  both.  But  settle  it  on  the  original  basis  of  the  Constitution,  and 
give  to  each  section  the  power  to  protect  itself  within  the  Union,  and 
now,  after  the  terrible  lessons  of  the  past  two  years,  the  Union  will  be 
stronger  than  before,  and,  indeed,  endure  for  ages.  Woe  to  the  man, 
North  or  South,  who,  to  the  third  or  fourth  generation,  should  teach 
men  disunion. 

And  now  the  way  to  reunion:  what  so  easy?  Behold  to-day  two 
separate  governments  in   one  country,  and  without  a  natural  dividing 


THE   GEEAT   CIVIL    WAK   IN    A^IEKICA.  449 

line;  with  two  presidents  and  cabinets,  and  a  double  Congress;  and 
yet,  each  under  a  Constitution  so  exactly  similar,  the  one  to  the  other, 
that  a  stranger  could  scarce  discern  the  ditference.  A\as  ever  folly 
and  madness  like  this?  Sir,  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  it 
should  so  continue  lonsr. 

But  why  speak  of  ways  or  terms  of  reunion  now  ?  The  will  is  yet 
wanting  in  both  sections.  Union  is  consent,  and  good-will,  and  frater- 
nal atlection.  AVar  is  force,  hate,  revenge.  Is  the  country  tired  at  last 
of  war  ?  Has  the  experiment  been  tried  long  enough  ?  Has  sufficient 
blood  been  shed,  treasure  expended,  and  misery  inflicted  in  both  the 
North  and  the  South  ?  What  then  ?  Stop  fighting.  Make  an  armis- 
tice— no  foi-mal  treaty.  Withdraw  your  Army  from  the  seceded  States. 
Reduce  both  armies  to  a  fair  and  sufficient  peace  establishment.  De- 
clare absolute  free  trade  between  the  North  and  South.  Buy  and  sell. 
Agree  upon  a  Zollverein.  Recall  your  fleets.  Break  up  your  blockade. 
Reduce  your  navy.  Restore  travel.  Open  up  railroads.  Re-establish 
the  telegraph.  Reunite  your  express  companies.  No  more  Monitors 
and  iron-clads,  but  set  your  friendly  steamers  and  steamships  again  in 
motion.  Visit  the  North  and  West.  Visit  the  South.  Exchansre 
newspapers.  Migrate.  Intermarry.  Let  slavery  alone.  Hold  elec- 
tions at  the  appointed  times.  Let  us  choose  a  new  President  in  sixty- 
four.  And  when  the  gospel  of  peace  shall  have  descended  again  from 
Heaven  into  thrir  hearts,  and  the  gospel  of  abolition  and  of  hate  been 
expelled,  let  your  clergy  and  the  churches  meet  again  in  Christian  inter- 
course, North  and  South.  Let  the  secret  orders  and  voluntary  associa- 
tions everywhere  reunite  as  brethren  once  more.  In  short,  give  to  all 
the  natural,  and  all  the  artificial  causes  which  impel  us  together,  their 
fullest  sway.  Let  time  do  his  office — drying  tears,  dispelling  .sorrows, 
mellowing  passion,  and  making  herb  and  grass  and  tree  to  grow  again 
upon  the  hundred  battle-fields  of  this  terrible  war. 

"  But  this  is  recognition."  It  is  not  formal  recognition,  to  which  I 
will  not  consent.  Recognition  now,  and  attempted  permanent  treaties 
about  boundary,  travel,  and  trade,  and  partition  of  Territories  would 
end  in  a  war  fiercer  and  more  disastrous  than  before.  Recognition  is 
absolute  disunion ;  and  not  between  the  slave  and  the  free  States,  but 
with  Delaware  and  Maryland  as  part  of  the  North,  aijd  Kentucky  and 
Missouri  p:irt  of  the  West.  But  wherever  the  actual  line,  every  evil 
and  mischief  of  disunion  is  implied  in  it.  And,  for  similar  reasons,  sir, 
I  would  not,  at  this  time,  press  hastily  a  convention  of  the  States.  The 
men  who  now  would  hold  seats  in  such  a  convention,  would,  upon  both 
sides,  if  both  agreed  to  attend,  come  together  full  of  the  hate  and  bit- 
terness inseparable  from  a  civil  war.  No,  sir ;  let  passion  have  time  to 
cool,  and  reason  to  resume  its  sway.  It  cost  thirty  years  of  desperate 
29 


450  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

and  most  wiclfed  patience  and  industry  to  destroy  or  impair  the  mag- 
nificent temple  of  this  Union.  Let  us  be  content  if,  within  three  years, 
we  sliall  be  able  to  restore  it. 

But,  certainly,  what  I  propose  is  informal,  practical  recognition. 
And  that  is  precisely  what  exists  to-day,  and  has  existed,  more  or  less 
defined,  iVoni  the  first.  Flags  of  truce,  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  all 
your  other  observances  of  the  laws,  forms,  and  courtesies  of  war,  are 
acts  of  recognition.  Sir,  does  any  man  doubt,  to-day,  that  there  is  a 
Confederate  Government  at  Richmond,  and  that  it  is  a  "  belligerent?" 
Even  the  Secretary  of  State  has  discovered  it  at  last,  though  he 
has  written  ponderous  folios  of  polished  rhetoric  to  prove  that  it 
is  not.  Will  continual  war  then,  without  extended  and  substantial 
success,  make  the  Confederate  States  any  the  less  a  government  in 
fact  ? 

"  But  it  confesses  disunion."  Yes,  just  as  the  surgeon,  who  sets 
your  fractured  limb  in  splints,  in  order  that  it  may  be  healed, 
admits  that  it  is  broken.  "  But  the  Government  will  have  failed  to 
crush  out  the  rebellion."  Sir,  it  has  failed.  You  went  to  Avar  to 
prove  tliat  we  had  a  Government.  With  what  result?  To  the 
people  of  the  loyal  States  it  has,  in  your  hands,  been  the  Govern- 
ment of  King  Stork,  but  to  the  Confederate  States,  of  King  Log. 
"  But  the  rebellion  will  have  triumphed."  Better  triumph  to-day 
than  ten  years  hence.  But  I  deny  it.  The  rebellion  will,  at  last, 
be  crushed  out,  in  the  only  way  in  which  it  ever  was  possible.  "  But 
no  one  will  be  hung  at  the  end  of  war."  Neither  will  there  be, 
though  tlie  war  should  last  half  a  century,  except  by  the  mob  or 
the  hand  of  arbitrary  power.  But,  really,  sir,  if  there  is  to  be  no 
hanging,  let  this  Administration,  and  all  who  have  done  its  bidding 
everywhere,  rejoice  and  be  exceeding  glad. 

And  now,  sir,  allow  me  a  word  upon  a  subject  of  very  great 
interest  at  this  moment,  and  most  important,  it  may  be,  in  its  influ- 
ence upon  the  future — foreign  mediation.  I  speak  not  of  armed 
and  hostile  intervention,  which  I  would  resist  as  long  as  but  one 
man  was  left  to  strike  a  blow  at  the  invader.  But  friendly  media- 
tion— tli#  kindly  offer  of  an  impartial  power  to  stand  as  a  daysman 
between  the  contending  parties  in  this  most  bloody  and  exhausting 
strife — ought  to  be  met  in  a  spirit  as  cordial  and  ready  as  that  in 
which  it  is  proffered.  It  would  be  churlish  to  refuse.  Certainly,  it 
is  not  consistent  with  the  former  dignity  of  this  Government  to  ask 
for  mediation  ;  neither,  sir,  would  it  befit  its  ancient  magnanimity  to 
reject  it.  As  propo*»ed  by  the  Emperor  of  France,  I  would  accept 
it  at  once.  Now  is  the  auspicious  moment.  It  is  the  speediest, 
easiest,  most   graceful  mode  of  suspending   hostilities.     Let  us   hear 


THE   GREAT   CIVIL    WAR   IN    A3IERICA.  451 

no  more  of  the  mediation  of  tlie  cannon  and  the  sword.  The  day 
for  all  that  has  fjone  bv.  Let  U5  be  statesmen  at  last.  Sir,  I  ffive 
thanks,  that  some,  at  least,  among  the  Republican  party,  seem  ready 
now  to  lift  themselves  up  to  the  height  of  this  great  argument,  and 
to  deal  with  it  in  the  spirit  of  the  patriots  and  great  men  of  other 
countries  and  ages,  and  of  the  better  days  of  the  United  States. 

And  now,  sir,  whatever  may  have  been  the  motives  of  England, 
France,  and  the  other  great  powers  of  Europe,  in  witholding  recogni- 
tion so  long  from  the  Confederate  States,  the  South  and  the  North 
are  both  indebted  to  them  for  an  immense  public  service.  The 
South  has  proved  her  ability  to  maintain  herself  by  her  own  strength 
and  resources,  without  foreign  aid,  moral  or  material.  And  the  North 
and  West — the  whole  country,  indeed — these  great  powers  have  served 
incalculably,  by  holding  back  a  solemn  proclamation  to  the  world 
that  the  Union  of  these  States  was  finally  and  formally  dissolved. 
They  have  left  to  us  every  motive  and  every  chance  for  reunion ;  and 
if  that  has  been  the  purpose  of  England  especially — our  rival  so 
long,  interested  more  than  any  other  in  disunion,  and  the  consequent 
weakening  of  our  great  naval  and  commercial  power,  and  suflfering, 
too,  as  she  has  suffered,  so  long  and  severely  because  of  this  war — I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  she  has  performed  an  act  of  unselfish 
heroism  without  example  in  history.  Was  such,  indeed,  her  pur- 
pose? Let  her  answer  before  the  impartial  tribunal  of  posterity. 
In  any  event,  after  the  great  reaction  in  public  sentiment  in  the 
North  and  West,  to  be  followed,  after  some  time,  by  a  like  reaction 
in  the  South,  foreign  recognition  now  of  the  Confederate  States  could 
avail  little  to  delay  or  prevent  final  reunion,  if,  as  I  firmly  believe, 
reunion  be  not  only  possible,  but  inevitable. 

Sir,  I  have  not  spoken  of  foreign  arbitration.  That  is  quite 
anot^ier  question.  I  think  it  impracticable,  and  fear  it  as  dangerous. 
The  very  powers — or  any  other  power — which  have  hesitated  to  aid 
disunion  directly  or  by  force,  might,  as  authorized  arbiters,  most 
readily  pronounce  !'or  it  at  last.  Very  grand,  indeed,  would  be  the 
tribunal  before  which  the  great  question  of  the  Union  of  these  States, 
and  the  final  destiny  of  this  continent,  for  ag  'S,  should  be  heard,  and 
historic,  through  all  time,  the  ambassadors  wlio  should  argue  it.  And, 
if  both  belligerents  consent,  let  the  subjects  in  controversy  be  referred 
to  Switzerland,  or  Russia,  or  any  other  impartial  and  incorruptible 
power  or  state  in  Europe.  But,  at  last,  sir,  the  people  of  these  several 
States  here,  at  home,  must  be  the  final  arbiters  of  this  great  quarrel  in 
America;  and  the  people  and  States  of  the  Northwest,  the  mediators 
who  shall  stand,  like  the  prophet,  betwixt  the  living  and  the  dead, 
that  the  plague  of  disunion  may  be  stayed. 


453  vallandigham's  speeches. 

Sir,  this  war,  horrible  as  it  is,  has  taught  us  all  some  of  the  most 
important  and  salutary  lessons  which  a  people  ever  'earned. 

First,  it  has  atinihilatcd,  in  twenty  months,  all  the  false  and  perni- 
cious theories  and  teachings  of  Abolitionism  for  thirty  years,  and  which 
a  mere  api)eal  to  facts  and  arguments  could  not  have  untang!)t  in  half 
a  century.  Wo  have  learned  that  the  South  is  not  weaR,  dependent, 
unenterprising,  or  corrupted  by  si. .very,  lu.xury,  and  idleness;  but 
powerful,  earnest,  warlike,  enduring,  self-supporting,  full  of  energy,  and 
inexhaustible  in  resources.  We  have  bee;i  taught,  and  now  confess 
it  openly,  that  African  slavery,  instead  of  being  a  source  of  weakness 
to  the  South,  is  one  of  her  main  elements  of  strength ;  ahd  hence  the 
"  military  necessity,"  we  are  told,  of  abolishing  slavery  in  order  to 
suppress  the  rebellion.  We  have  learned,  also,  that  the  non-slave- 
holding  white  men  of  the  South,  millions  in  number,  are  immovably 
attached  to  the  institution,  and  are  its  chief  support ;  and  Abolitionists 
have  found  out,  to  their  infinite  surprise  and  disgust,  that  the  slave  is 
not  "  panting  for  freedom,"  nor  pining  in  silent,  but,  revengeful  grief 
over  cruelty  and  oppression  inflicted  upon  him,  but  happy,  contented, 
attached  deeply  to  his  master,  and  unwilling — at  least  not  eager — to 
accept  the  precious  boon  of  freedom,  which  tliey  have  proffered  him. 
I  appeal  to  the  President  for  the  proof.  I  appeal  to  the  fact,  that 
fewer  slaves  have  escaped,  even  from  Virginia,  in  now  nearly  two  years, 
than  Arnold  and  Cornwallis  carried  away  in  six  months  of  invasion,  in 
1781.  Finally,  sir,  we  have  learned,  and  the  South,  too,  what  the 
history  of  the  world  ages  ago,  and  our  own  history  might  have  taught 
us,  that  servile  insurrection  is  the  least  of  the  dangers  to  which  she  is 
exposed.  Hence,  in  my  deliberate  judgment,  African  slaver)^  as  an 
institution,  will  come  out  of  this  conflict  fifty-fold  stronger  than  when 
the  war  began. 

The  South,  too,  sir,  has  learned  most  important  lessons  ;  and  among 
them,  that  personal  courage  is  a  quality  common  to  all  sections,  and 
that  in  battle,  the  men  of  the  North,  and  especially  of  the  West,  are 
their  equals.  Hitherto  there  has  been  a  mutual,  ancl  most  mischievous 
mistake  upon  both  sides.  The  men  of  the  South  overvaluc^i  their 
own  personal  courage,  and  undervalued  ours,  and  we,  too,  readily 
consented ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  exaggerated  our  aggregate 
strength  and  resources,  and  underestimated  their  own ;  and  we  fell 
into  the  same  error ;  and  hence,  the  original  and  fotal  mistake,  or  vice, 
of  the  military  policy  of  the  North,  and  which  has  already  broken 
down  the  war  by  its  own  weight — the  belief  that  we  could  bring 
overwhelming  numbers  and  power  into  the  field,  and  upon  the  sea, 
and  crush  out  the  South  at  a  blow.  But  twenty  months  of  terrible 
warfare  have  corrected  many  errors,  and  taught  us  the  wisdom  of  a 


THE   GEE  AT    CIVIL    WAR   IX    AMERICA.  453 

century.  And  now,  sir,  every  one  of  these  lessons  will  profit  us  all  for 
ages  to  come ;  and  if  we  do  but  reunite,  will  bind  us  in  a  closer,  firmer, 
more  durable  union  than  ever  before. 

I  have  finished  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  what  I  desired  to  say  at  this 
time,  upon  the  great  question  of  the  reunion  of  these  States.  I  have 
spoken  freely  and  boldly — not  wisely,  it  may  be,  for  the  present,  or 
for  myself  personally,  but  most  wisely  for  the  future  and  for  my 
country.  Not  courting  censure,  I  yet  do  not  shrink  from  it.  My 
own  immediate  personal  interests,  and  my  chances  just  now  for  the 
more  material  rewards  of  ambition,  I  again  surrender  as  hostages  to 
that  GREAT  HEREAFTER,  the  ccho  of  whosc  footstcps  already  I  hear 
along  the  highway  of  time.  Whoever,  here  or  elsewhere,  believes  that 
war  can  restore  the  Union  of  these  States ;  whoever  would  have  a  war 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  or  disunion  ;  and  he  who  demands  Southern 
independence  and  final  separation — let  him  speak,  for  him  I  have  ofi'end- 
ed.  Devoted  to  the  Union  from  the  beginning,  I  will  not  desert  it  now 
in  this  the  hour  of  its  sorest  trial. 

Sir,  it  was  the  ^ay-dream  of  my  boyhood,  the  cherished  desire  of 
my  heart  in  youth,  that  I  might  live  to  see  the  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  our  national  independence,  and,  as  orator  of  the  day,  exult  in 
the  expanding  glories  and  greatness  of  the  still  United  States,  That 
vision  lingers  yet  before  my  eyes,  obscured,  indeed,  by  the  clouds  and 
thick  darkness  and  the  blood  of  civil  war.  But,  sir,  if  the  men  of 
this  generation  are  wise  enough  to  profit  by  the  hard  experience  of 
the  past,  two  years,  and  will  turn  their  hearts  now  from  bloody  in- 
tents to  the  words  and  arts  of  peace,  that  day  will  find  us  again  the 
United  States.  And  if  not  earlier,  as  I  would  desire  and  believe,  at 
least  upon  that  day  let  the  great  work  of  reunion  be  consummated ; 
that  henceforth,  for  ages,  the  States  and  the  people  who  shall  fill  up 
this  mighty  continent,  united  under  one  Constitution,  and  in  one  Union, 
and  the  same  destiny,  shall  celebrate  it  as  the  birthday  both  of  Inde- 
pendence and  of  the  Great  Restoration. 

Sir,  I  repeat  it,  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  very  crisis  of  this  revolu- 
tion. If,  to-day,  we  secure  peace,  and  begin  the  work  of  reunion,  we 
shall  yet  escape ;  if  not,  I  see  aothing  before  us  but  universal  political 
and  social  revolution,  anarchy,  and  bloodshed,  compared  with  which, 
the  Reign  of  Terror  in  France  was  a  merciful  visitation. 


454  vallandiguam's  speeches. 

the  coxscriptiox  bill.— arbitrary  arrests. 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  23,  1863.* 

Mr.  Speaker  :  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  bill  at  any  great 
length  in  this  House.  I  am  satisfied  that  there  is  a  settled  purpose 
to  enact  it  into  a  law,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  for  the  action  of  the 
Senate  and  House,  and  the  President  to  make  it  such.  I  appeal, 
therefore,  from  you,  from  them,  directly  to  the  country ;  to  a  forum 
where  there  is  no  military  committee,  no  previous  question,  no  hour 
rule,  and  where  the  people  themselves  are  the  masters.  I  commend 
the  spirit  in  which  this  discussion  was  commenced  by  the  chairman 
of  the  military  committee  (Mr.  Olin),  and  I  do  it  the  more  cheer- 
fully because,  unfortunately,  he  is  not  always  in  so  good  a  temper  as 
he  was  to-day ;  and  I  trust  that  throughout  the  debate,  and  on  its 
close,  he  will  exhibit  that  same  disposition  which  characterized  his 
opening  remarks.  Only  let  me  caution  him  that  he  cannot  dictate 
to  the  minority  here  what  course  they  shall  pmsue.  But,  sir,  I 
regret  that  I  cannot  extend  the  commendation  to  the  gentleman  from 
Pennsylvania  (Mr.  Campbell),  who  addressed  the  House  a  little  while 
ago.  His  speech  was  extremely  offensive,  and  calculated  to  stir  up  a 
spirit  of  bitterness  and  strife,  not  at  all  consistent  with  that  in  which 
debates  in  this  House  should  be  conducted.  If  he,  or  any  other  gentle- 
man of  the  majority,  imagines  that  any  one  here  is  to  be  deterred  by 
threats,  from  the  expression  of  his  opinions,  or  from  giving  such  votes 
as  he  may  see  fit  to  give,  he  has  utterly  misapprehended  the  temper  and 
determination  of  those  who  sit  on  this  side  of  the  Chamber.  His 
threat  I  hurl  back  with  defiance  into  his  teeth.  I  spurn  it.  I  spit 
upon  it.  That  is  not  the  argument  to  be  addressed  to  equals  here ; 
and  I,  therefore,  most  respectfully  suggest,  that  hereafter,  all  such  be 
dispensed  with,  and  that  we  shall  be  spared  personal  denunciation,  and 
insinuations  against  the  loyalty  of  men  who  sit  with  me  here ;  men 
whose  devotion  to  the  Constitution,  and  attachment  to  the  Union  of 
these  States  is  as  ardent  and  immovable  as  yours,  and  who  only  differ 

* 

*  Upon  this  bill  a  debate  ensued,  which,  for  power,  eloquence,  strength  of  argu- 
ment, and  bold  , defence  of  constitutional  rights,  has  not  often  been  equalled.  In- 
spired with  the  courage  always  given  to  those  who  are  right,  Vallandigham, 
VoORHEES,  Pendleton,  Cox,  Biddle,  and  others,  standing  unmoved  against  the 
strong  current  of  despotism,  boldly  assailed  the  most  dangerous  and  vulnerable 
features  of  the  BilL  At  the  most  exciting  moment  of  the  conflict,  Mr.  V.  addressed 
the  House.  Bingham,  of  Ohio,  thought  his  "  assumptions  unworthy  of  any  man 
who  had  grown  to  man's  estate  under  the  shelter  of  the  Constitution."  Yoorhees 
replied  he  "  had  held  tho  House  spell-bound  with  one  of  the  ablest  arguments  he 
had  ever  heard." 


■-'  -^  ---    J^     y jJ-.iL. 


THE    CONSCKIPTIOJSr   BILL. AEBITEAEY  ARRESTS.    455 

from  vou  as  to  the  mode  of  securing  the  great  object  nearest  their 
hearts. 

[Here  Mr.  Vallandigham  yielded  the  floor  to  Mr.  Campbell  at  his  request  for 
an  explanation,  which  being  made  in  highly  ofiensive  language,  Mr.  V.  declined 
to  yield  longer,  saying,  amid  applause  in  the  gallery,  "  That  is  enough.  Not 
another  moment  after  that.  I  yielded  the  floor  in  the  spirit  of  a  gentleman,  and 
not  to  be  met  in  the  manner  of  a  blackguard."  ♦  A  scene  of  confusion  on  the  floor 
and  in  the  galleries,  followed  for  some  moments,  after  which  Mr.  V.  resumed  as 
follows  :] 

I  think,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  this  lesson  has  not  been  lost ;  and  that  it 
is  suflSciently  impressed  now  upon  the  minds  of  the  audience  that  this 
is  a  legislative,  and  is  supposed  to  be  a  deliberative,  assembly,  and  that 
no  breach  of  decorum  or  order  should  occur  among  them,  whatever 
may  be  the  conduct  of  any  of  us  on  the  floor. 

The  member  from  Pennsylvania  (Mr.  Campbell)  alluded  to-day,  gen- 
erally, to  gentlemen  on  this  side  of  the  House.  There  was  no  mistaking 
the  application.  The  language  and  gesture  were  both  plain  enough. 
He  ventured  also,  approvingly,  to  call  our  attention  to  the  opinions  and 
course  of  conduct  of  some  Democrats  in  the  State  of  New  York,  as  if 
we  were  to  learn  our  lessons  in  Democracy,  or  in  any  thing  else,  from 
that  quarter.  I  do  not  know,  certainly,  to  whom  he  alluded.  Perhaps 
it  was  to  a  gentleman  who  spoke,  not  long  since,  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  advocated  on-  that  occasion,  what  is  called  in  stereotype 
phrase  "  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war,"  and  who,  but  two  months 
previously,  addressed  assemblages  in  the  same  State  and  city,  in  which 
he  proposed  only  to  take  Richmond,  and  then  let  the  "  wayward 
sisters  depart  in  peace."  Now  I  know  of  no  one  on  this  side  of  the 
Chamber  occupying  such  a  position ;  and  I,  certainly,  will  not  go  to 
that  quarter  to  learn  lessons  in  patriotism  or  Democracy. 

I  have  already  said,  that  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  debate  the  general 
merits  of  this  Bill  at  large,  and  for  the  reason,  that  I  am  satisfied  that 
argument  is  of  no  avail  here.  I  appeal,  therefore,  to  the  people. 
Before  them,  I  propose  to  try  this  great  question — the  question  of  con- 
stitutional power,  and  of  the  unwise  and  injudicious  exercise  of  it  in 
this  Bill.  We  have  been  compelled,  repeatedly,  since  the  4th  of  March, 
1861,  to  appeal  to  the  same  tribunal.  We  appealed  to  it  at  the  recent 
election.  And  the  people  did  pronounce  judgment  upon  our  appeal. 
The  member  from  Pennsylvania  ought  to  have  heard  their  sentence,  and 
I  venture  to  say  that  he  did  hear  it,  on  the  night  of  the  election.  In 
Ohio  they  spoke  as  with  the  voice  of  many  waters.  The  very  question, 
of  summary  and  arbitrary  arrests,  novv'  sanctioned  in  this  Bill,  was  sub- 
mitted, as  a  direct  issue,  to  the  people  of  that  State,  as  also  of  other 
States,  and  their  verdict  was  rendered  upon  it.      The  Democratic  Con- 


456  VALLAXDIG ham's  speeches. 

vcntion  of  Ohio,  assembled  on  the  4th  of  July  in  the  city  of  Columbus, 
the  largest  and  best  ever  held  in  the  State,  among  other  resolutions,  of 
the  same  temper  and  spirit,  adopted  this  without  a  dissenting  voice : 

"  And  we  utterly  condemn  and  denouhce  the  repeated  and  gross  violation,  by 
the  Executive  of  the  United  States,  of  the  rights  thus  secured  by  the  Constitution  ; 
and  we  also  utterly  repudiate  and  condemn  the  monstrous  do^'aui.  that  in  time  of 
war  the  Constitution  is  suspended,  or  its  power  in  any  respect  enlarged  beyond 
the  letter,  and  true  meaning  of  that  instrument. 

"  And  we  view,  also,  with  indignation  and  alarm,  the  illegal  and  unconstitutional 
seizure  and  imprisonment,  for  illeged  political  oflences,  of  our  citizens,  without 
judicial  process,  in  States  where  such  process  is  unobstructed,  but  by  Executive 
order  by  telegraph,  or  otherwise,  and  call  upon  all  who  uphold  the  Union,  the 
Constitution,  and  the  laws,  to  unite  with  us,  in  denouncing  and  repelling  such 
flagrant  violation  of  the  State  and  Federal  Constitutions,  and  tyrannical  infrac- 
tion of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  American  citizens ;  and  that  the  people  of  this 
State  CAxyoT  safely,  and  will  not,  submit  to  have  the  freedom  of  speech  and 
freedom  of  the  press,  the  two  great  and  essential  bulwarks  of  civil  liberty,  put 
down  by  unwarranted  and  despotic  exertion  of  power." 

On  that,  the  judgment  of  the  people  was  given  at  the  October 
elections,  and  the  party  candidates  nominated  by  the  Convention  which 
adopted  that  resolution,  were  triumphantly  elected.  So,  too,  with  the 
candidates  of  the  same  party  in  the  States  of  Wisconsin,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York.  And,  sir,  that 
"  healthy  reaction,"  recently,  of  which  the  member  from  Pennsylvania 
(Mr.  Campbell)  atfected  to  boast,  has  escaped  ray  keenest  sense  of 
vision.  I  see  only  that  handwriting  on  the  wall  which  the  fingers  of 
the  people  wrote  against  him  and  his  party,  and  this  whole  Administra- 
tion, at  the  ballot-box,  in  October  and  November  last.  Talk  to  me, 
indeed,  of  the  leniency  of  the  Executive !  too  few  arrests  !  too  much  for- 
bearance by  those  in  power !  Sir,  it  is  the  people  who  have  been  too 
lenient.  They  have  submitted  to  your  oppressions  and  wrongs  as  no 
free  people  ought  ever  to  submit.  But  the  day  of  patient  endurance 
has  gone  by  at  last.  Mistake  them  not.  They  will  be  lenient  no 
longer.  Abide  by  the  Constitution,  stand  by  the  laws,  restore  the 
Union,  if  you  can  restore  it — not  by  force — you  have  tried  that  and 
failed.  Try  some  other  method  now — the  ancient,  the  approved,  the 
reasonable  way — the  way  in  which  the  Union  was  first  made.  Sur- 
render it  not  now — not  yet — never.  But  unity  is  not  Union  ;  and 
attempt  not,  at  your  peril — I  warn  you — to  coerce  unity  by  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  rights  of  the  States  and  the 
liberties  of  the  people.  Unien  is  liberty  and  consent:  unity  is  despot- 
ism and  force.  For  what  was  the  Union  ordained  ?  As  a  splendid 
edifice,  to  attract  the  gaze  and  admiration  of  the  world  ?  As  a  magnifi- 
cent temple — a  stupendous  superstructure  of  marble  and  iron,  like  this 


THE    CONSCIRIPTON    BILL. AEBITEARY  AREESTS.    457 

Capitol,  upon  whose  lofty  dome  the  bronzed  image — hollow  and 
inanimate — of  Freedom  is  soon  to  stand  erect  in  colossal  mockery, 
while  the  true  spirit,  the  living  Goddess  of  Liberty,  veils  her  eyes  and 
turns  away  her  face  in  sorrow,  because,  upon  the  altar  established  here, 
and  dedicated  by  our  fathers  to  her  worship — you,  a  false  and  most  dis- 
loyal priesthood,  offer  up,  night  and  morning,  the  mingled  sacrifices  of 
servitude  and  despotism  ?  No,  sir.  It  was  for  the  sake  of  the  altar, 
the  service,  the  religioa,  the  devotees,  that  the  temple  of  the  Union  was 
first  erected ;  and  when  these  are  all  gone,  let  the  edifice  itself  perish. 
Never — never — never  will  the  people  consent  to  lose  their  own  personal 
and  political  rights  and  liberties,  to  the  end  that  you  may  delude  and 
mock  them  with  the  splendid  unity  of  despotism. 

Sir,  what  are  the  bills  which  have  passed,  or  are  still  before  the 
House  ?  The  bill  to  give  the  President  entire  control  of  the  currency 
— the  purse — of  the  country.  A  tax -bill  to  clothe  him  with  power  over 
the  whole  property  of  the  country.  A  bill  to  put  all  power  in  his 
hands  over  the  personal  liberties  of  the  people.  A  bill  to  indemnify 
him,  and  all  under  him,  for  every  act  of  oppression  and  outrage  already 
consummated.  A  bill  to  enable  him  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
in  order  to  justify  or  protect  him,  and  every  minion  of  his,  in  the 
arrests  which  he  or  they  may  choose  to  make — arrests,  too,  for  mere 
opinion's  sake.  Sir,  some  two  hundred  years  ago,  men. were  burned  at 
the  stake,  subjected  to  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisition,  to  all  the  tortures 
that  the  devilish  ingenuity  of  man  could  invent — for. what?  For 
opinions  on  questions  of  religion — of  man's  duty  and  relation  to  his 
God.  And  now,  to-day,  for  opinions  on  questions  political,  under  a 
free  government,  in  a  country  whose  liberties  were  purchased  by  our 
fathers  by  seven  years'  outpouring  of  blood,  and  expenditure  of 
treasure — we  have  lived  to  see  men,  the  born  heirs  of  this  precious  in- 
heritance, subjected  to  arrest  and  cruel  imprisonment  at  the  caprice  of 
a  President,  or  a  secretary,  or  a  constable.  And,  as  if  that  were  not 
enough,  a  bill  is  introduced  here,  to-day,  and  pressed  forward  to  a  vote, 
with  the  right  of  debate,  indeed — extorted  from  you  by  the  minority — 
but  without  the  right  to  amend,  with  no  more  than  the  mere  privilege 
of  protest — a  bill  which  enables  the  President  to  bring  under  his 
power,  as  Commander-in-chief,  every  man  in  the  United  States  between 
the  ages  of  twenty  and  forty-five — three  millions  of  men.  And,  as  if 
not  satisfied  with  that,  this  bill  provides,  further,  that  every  other 
citizen,  man,  woman,  and  child,  under  twenty  years  of  age  and  over  forty- 
five,  including  those  that  may  be  exempt  between  these  ages,  shall  be 
also,  at  the  mercy, — so  far  as  his  personal  liberty  is  concerned — of  some 
miserable  "  provost-marshal"  with  the  rank  of  a  captain  of  cavalry,  who 
is  never  to  see  service  in  the  fiel^,  and  every  Congressional  district  ip 


458  VALLAI^DIGIIAm's    SrEECHES. 

the  United  States  is  to  be  governed — yes,  governed — by  this  petty 
satrap — this  military  ennuch — this  Baba — and  he  even  may  be  black — 
who  is  to  do  the  bidding  of  your  Sultan,  or  his  Grand  Vizier.  Sir,  you 
have  but  one  step  further  to  go — give  him  the  symbols  of  his  office — 
the  Turkish  bow-string  and  the  sack. 

What  is  it,  sir,  but  a  bill  to  abrogate  the  Constitution,  to  repeal  all 
existing  laws,  to  destroy  all  rights,  to  strike  down  the  judiciary,  and 
erect,  upon  the  ruins  of  civil  and  political  Ubeity,  a  stupendous  super- 
structure of  despotism.  And  for  what  ?  To  enforce  law  ?  No,  sir. 
It  is  admitted  now,  by  the  legislation  of  Congress,  and  by  the  two  pro- 
clamations of  the  President ;  it  is  admitted  by  common  consent,  that 
the  war  is  for  the  abolition  of  negro  slavery,  to  secure  freedom  to  the 
black  man.  You  tell  me,  some  of  you,  I  know,  that  it  is  so  prosecuted 
because  this  is  the  only  way  to  restore  the  Union  ;  but  others  openly 
and  candidly  confess  that  the  purpose  of  the  prosecution  of  the  war  is  to 
abolish  slavery.  And  thus,  sir,  it  is  tliat  the  freedom  of  the  negro  is  to 
be  purchased,  under  this  bill,  at  the  sacrifice  of  every  right  of  the  white 
men  of  the  United  States. 

Sir,  I  am  opposed — earnestly,  inexorably  opposed — to  this  measure. 
If  there  were  not  another  man  in  this  House  to  vote  against  it — if  there 
were  none  to  raise  his  voice  against  it — I  at  least,  dare  stand  here  alone 
in  my  place,  as  a  Representative,  undismayed,  unseduccd,  unterrified, 
and  heedless  of  the  miserable  cry  of  "  disloyalty,"  of  sympathy  with 
the  rebellion,  ^nd  with  rebels,  to  denounce  it  as  the  very  consummation  , 
of  the  conspiracy  against  the  Constitution  and  the  liberties  of  my 
countrv. 

Sir,  I  yield  to  no  man  in  devotion  to  the  Union.  I  am  for  maintain- 
ing it  upon  the  principles  on  wliich  it  was  first  formed ;  and  I  would 
have  it,  at  every  sacrifice,  except  of  liberty,  which  is  "  the  life  of  the 
nation."  I  have  stood  by  it  in  boyhood  and  in  manhood,  to  this  hour ; 
and  I  will  not  now  consent  to  yield  it  up ;  nor  am  I  to  be  driven  from 
an  earnest  and  persistent  support  of  the  only  means  by  which  it  can  be 
restored,  either  by  the  threats  of  the  party  of  the  Administration  here, 
or  because  of  affected  sneers  and  contemptuous  refusals  to  listen,  now, 
to  reunion,  by  the  party  of  the  Administration  at  Richmond.  I  never  was 
weak  enough  to  cower  before  the  reign  of  terror  inaugurated  by  the 
men  in  power  here,  nor  vain  enough  to  expect  favorable  responses  now, 
or  terras  of  settlement,  from  the  men  in  power,  or  the  presses  under 
their  control,  in  the  South.  Neither  will  ever  compromise  this  great 
quarrel,  nor  agree  to  peace  on  the  basis  of  reunion :  but  1  repeat  it — 
stop  fighting,  and  let  time  and  natural  causes  operate — uncontrolled  by 
military  influences — and  the  ballot  there,  as  the  ballot  here,  will  do  its 
work.     I  am  for  the  Union  of  these  ^tes  ;  and  but  for  my  profound 


THE    COXSCRIPTION   BELL. AEBITRAET   AREESTS.    459 

conviction  that  it  can  never  be  restored  by  force  and  arms ;  or,  if  so 
restored,  could  not  be  maintained,  and  would  not  be  worth  maintaining, 
I  would  have  united,  at  first — even  now  would  unite,  cordially — in 
giving,  as  I  have  acquiesced,  silently,  in  your  talcing,  all  the  men  and 
all  the  money  you  have  demanded.  But  I  did  not  believe,  and  do  not 
now  believe,  that  the  war  could  end  in  any  thing  but  final  defeat ;  and 
if  it  should  last  long  enough,  then  in  disunion ;  or,  if  successful  upon 
the  principles  now  proclaimed,  that  it  must  and  would  end  in  the 
establishment  of  an  imperial  military  despotism — not  only  in  the  South 
— but  in  the  Xorth  and  West.  And  to  that  I  never  will  submit.  No, 
rather,  I  am  ready  first  to  yield  up  property,  and  my  owu  personal 
liberty — nay,  life  itself. 

Sir,  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  now  the  question  of  the  constitution- 
ality of  this  measure.  The  gentleman  from  Ohio,  who  preceded  me 
(Mr.  White),  has  spared  me  the  necessity  of  an  argument  on  that  point. 
He  has  shown  that,  between  the  Army  of  the  United  States,  of  which, 
by  the  Constitution,  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  the  Com- 
mander-in-chief, and  the  militia,  belonging  to  the  States,  there  is  a 
wide,  and  clearly  marked  line  of  distinction.  The  distinction  is  fully 
and  strongly  defined  in  the  Constitution ;  and  has  been  recognized  in 
the  entire  legislation  and  practice  of  the  Government  from  the  begin- 
ning. The  States  have  the  right,  and  have  always  exercised  it,  of 
anpointing  the  officers  of  their  militia,  and  you  have  no  power  to  take 
it  away.  Sir,  this  bill  was  originally  introduced  in  the  Senate  as  a 
militia  bill,  and  as  such,  it  recognized  the  right  of  the  States  to  appoint 
the  officers ;  but  finding  it  impossible,  upon  that  basis,  to  give  to  the 
Executive  of  the  United  States,  the  entire  control  of  the  millions  thus 
organized  into  a  military  force,  as  the  conspirators  against  State  rights 
and  popular  liberty  desire,  the  original  bill  was  abandoned  ;  and  to-day 
behold  here  a  stupendous  Conscription  Bill,  for  a  standing  army  of 
more  than  three  millions  of  men,  forced  from  their  homes,  their  families, 
their  fields,  and  their  workshops — an  army  organized,  officered,  and 
commanded  by  the  servant  President,  now  the  master  Dictator,  of  the 
United  States.  And  for  what  ?  Foreign  war  ?  Home  defence  ?  No  ; 
but  for  coercion,  invasion,  and  the  abolition  of  negro  slavery  by  force. 
Sir,  the  conscription  of  Russia  is  mild  and  merciful  and  just,  compared 
with  this.  And  yet,  the  enforcement  of  that  conscription  has  just 
stirred  again  the  slumbering  spirit  of  insurrection  in  Poland,  though  the 
heel  of  despotic  power  has  trodden  upon  the  necks  of  her  people  for  a 
century.  •  ^ 

Where  now  are  your  taunts  and  denunciations,  heaped  upon  the 
Confederate  Government  for  its  conscription,  when  you,  yourselves, 
become  the  humble  imitators  oT  that  government,  and  bring  in  here 


460  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

a  Conscription  Bill,  more  odious  even  than  that  passed  by  the  Con- 
federate Congress  at  Richmond  ?  Sir,  the  chairman  of  the  military 
committee  rejoiced  that  for  the  last  two  years  the  army  had  been 
tilled  up  by  voluntary  enlistments.  Yes,  your  army  has  hitherto  been 
thus  filled  up  by  the  men  of  the  North  and  West.  One  million  two 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  thousand  men — for  most  of  the  drafted  men 
enlisted,  or  procured  substitutes — have  voluntarily  surrendered  their  civil 
rights,  subjected  themselves  to  military  law,  and  thus  passed  under  the 
command  and  within  the  control  of  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
It  is  not  for  me  to  complain  of  that.  It  was  their  own  act — done  of 
their  own  free  will  and  accord — unless  bounties,  promises,  and  persua- 
sion may  be  regarded  as  coercion.  The  work  you  proposed  was  gigan- 
tic, and  your  means  proportionate  to  it.  And  what  has  been  the  re- 
sult ?  What  do  you  propose  now  ?  What  is  this  Bill  ?  A  confession 
that  the  people  are  no  longer  ready  to  enlist :  that  they  are  not  willing 
to  carry  on  this  war  longer,  until  some  effort  has  been  made  to  settle 
this  great  controversy  in  some  other  way  than  by  the  sword.  And  yet, 
in  addition  to  the  1,237,000  men  who  have  voluntarily  enlisted,  you 
propose  now  to  force  the  entire  body  of  the  people,  between  the  ages 
of  twenty  and  forty-five,  under  military  law,  and  within  the  control  of 
the  President,  as  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Army,  for  three  ycftrs,  or 
during  the  war — which  is  to  say  "  for  life ;"  ay,  sir,  for  life,  and  half 
your  army  has  already  found,  or  will  yet  find,  that  their  enlistment  was 
for  life  too. 

I  repeat  it,  sir,  this  bill  is  a  confession  that  the  people  of  the 
country  are  against  this  war.  It  is  a  solemn  admission,  upon  the 
record  in  the  legislation  of  Congress,  that  they  will  not  voluntarily 
consent  to  wage  it  any  longer.  And  yet,  ignoring  every  principle 
upon  which  the  Government  was  founded,  this  measure  is  an  attempt, 
by  compulsion,  to  carry  it  on  against  the  will  of  the  people.  Sir, 
what  does  all  this  mean  ?  You  were  a  majority  at  first,  the  people 
were  almost  unanimously  with  you,  and  they  were  generous  and 
enthusiastic  in  your  support.  You  abused  your  power,  and  your 
trust,  and  you  failed  to  do  the  work  which  you  promised.  You.  have 
lost  the  confidence,  lost  the  hearts  of  the  people.  You  are  now  a 
minority  at  home.  And  yet,  what  a  spectacle  is  exhibited  here  to- 
night! You,  an  accidental,  temporary  majority  in  this  House,  con- 
demned and  repudiated  by  the  people,  are  exhausting  the  few  remain- 
ing hours  of  your  political  life,  in  attempting  to  defeat  the  popular  will, 
and  to  compel,  by  the  most^desperate  and  despotic-  of  expedients  ever 
resorted  to,  the  submission  of  the  majority  of  the  people,  at  home, 
to  the  minority,  their  servants,  here.  Sir,  this  experiment  has  been 
tried  before,  in  other  ages  and  countries,  and  its  issue  always,  among  a 


THE    COXSCRIPTIOlSr   BILL. AEBITRAEY   ARRESTS.    461 

people  born  free,  or  fit  to  be  free,  has  been  expulsion  or  death  to  the 
conspirators  and  tyrants. 

I  make  no  threats.  They  are  not  arguments  fit  to  be  addressed 
to  equals  in  a  legislative  assembly ;  but  there  is  truth,  solemn 
alarming  truth,  in  what  has  b^n  said,  to-day,  by  gentlemen  on  this 
side  of  the  Chamber,  Have  a  care,  have  a  care,  I  entreat  you,  that 
you  do  not  press  these  measures  too  far.  I  shall  do  nothing  to  stir  up 
an  already  excited  people — not  because  of  any  fear  of  your  contemptible 
petty  provost-marshals,  but  because  I  desire  to  see  no  violence  or  revolu- 
tion in  the  North  or  West.  Yet  I  warn  you  now,  that  whenever,  against 
the  will  of  the  people,  and  to  perpetuate  power  and  office  in  a  popular 
government  which  they  have  taken  from  you,  you  undertake  to  enforce 
this  bill,  and,  like  the  destroying  angel  in  Egypt,  enter  every  house 
for  the  first-born  sons  of  the  people — remember  Poland.  You  can- 
not, and  will  not  be  permitted  to  establish  a  military  despotism. 
Be  not  encouraged  by  the  submission  of  other  nations.  The  people 
of  Austria,  of  Russia,  of  Spain,  of  Italy,  have  never  known  the  inde- 
pendence and  liberty  of  freemen.  France,  in  seventy  years,  has  wit- 
nessed seven  principal  revolutions — the  last  brought  about  in  a  single 
day,  by  the  arbitrary  attempt  of  the  king  to  suppress  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press,  and  next  the  free  assembling  of  the  people  ; 
and  when  he  would  have  retraced  .his  steps  and  restored  these  liberties, 
a  voice  from  the  galleries,  not  filled  with  clerks  and  plunderers  and 
place-men,  uttered  the  sentiments  and  will  of  the  people  of  France, 
in  words  now  historic : — "  It  is  too  late."  The  people  of  England 
never  submitted,  and  would  not  now  submit,  for  a  moment,  to  the 
despotism  which  you  propose  to  inaugurate  in  America,  England 
cannot,  to-day,  fill  up  her  standing  armies  by  conscription.  Even  the 
"  press  gang,"  unknown  to  her  laws,  but  for  ii  time  acquiesced  in,  has 
long  since  been  declared  illegal ;  and  a  sweeping  conscription  like  this 
now,  would  hurl  not  only  the  ministry  from  power,  but  the  queen  from 
her  throne^ 

Sir,  so  far  as  this  bill  is  a  mere  military  measure,  I  might  have 
been  content  to  have  given  a  silent  vote  against  it ;  but  there  are  two 
provisions  in  it  hostile,  both  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  inconsistent  with  the  avowed  scope  and  purpose  of  the  bill 
itself ;  and  certainly,  as  I  read  them  in  the  light  of  events  which  have 
occurred  in  the  past  two  years,  of  a  character  which  demands  that  the 
majority  of  this  House  shall  strike  them  out.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  argument,  that  we  have  no  time  to  send  the  bill  back  to  the  Senate, 
lest  it  should  be  lost.  The  presiding  officers  of  both  Houses  are 
friends  of  the  bill,  and  will  constitute  committees  of  conference  of  men 
favorable  to  it.     They  will  agree  at  once,  and  can  at  any  moment 


462  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

between  this  and  the  4ih  of  March,  present  their  report  as  a  question 
of  the  highest  privilege  ;  and  you  liavc  a  two-thirds  majority  in  both 
branches  to  adopt  it. 

With  these  provisions  of  the  bill  stricken  out,  leaving  it  simply  as  a 
military  measure,  to  be  tested  by  the  great  question  of  peace  or  war,  I 
would  be  willing  that  the  majority  of  the  House  should  take  the  respon- 
sibility of  passing  it  wilhout  further  debate ;  although,  even  then,  you 
would  place  every  man  in  the  United  States,  between  the  ages  of  twenty 
and  forty-five,  under  military  law,  and  within  the  control,  everywhere, 
of  the  President,  except  the  very  few  who  are  exempt;  but  you  would 
leave  the  shadow,  at  least,  of  liberty  to  all  men  not  between  these  ages, 
or  not  subject  to  draft  under  this  bill,  and  to  the  women  and  children 
of  the  country  too. 

Sir,  these  two  provisions  propose  to  go  a  step  further,  and  include 
every  one,  man,  woman,  and  child,  and  to  place  hira  or  her  under  the 
arbitrary  power,  not  only  of  the  President  and  his  cabinet,  but  of  some 
two  hundred  and  fifty  other  petty  officers,  captains  of  cavalry,  appointed 
by  him.  There  is  no  distinction  of  sex,  and  none  of  age.  These  pro- 
visions, sir,  are  contained  in  the  seventh  and  twenty-fifth  sections  of  the 
bill.  What  are  they  ?  I  comment  not  on  the  appointment  of  a  general 
provost-marshal  of  the  United  States,  and  provost-marshals  in  every 
Congressional  District.  Let  that  pass.  But  what  do  you  propose  to 
make  the  duty  of  each  provost-marshal  in  carrying  out  the  draft? 
Among  other  things,  that  he  shall  "  inquire  into,  and  report  to  the  pro- 
vost-marshal general" — what  ?  Treason  ?  No.  Felony  ?  No.  Breach 
of  the  peace,  or  violation  of  the  law  of  any  kind  ?  No  ;  but  "  treasona- 
ble practices ;"  yes,  treasonable  practices.  What  mean  you  by  these 
strange,  ominous  words  ?  Whence  come  they  ?  Sir,  they  are  no  more 
new  or  original  than  any  other  of  the  cast-off"  rags  filched  by  this  Ad- 
ministration from  the  lumber-house  of  other  and  more  antiquated  des- 
potisms. The  history  of  European  tyranny  has  taught  us  somewhat  of 
this  doctrine  of  constructive  treason.  Treasonable  practices  !  Sir,  the 
very  language  is  borrowed  from  the  British  monarchs,  some  hundreds 
of  years  ago.  It  brings  up  the  old,  identical  quarrel  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Treasonable  practices!  It  was  this  that  called  forth  that 
English  Act  of  Parliament  of  twenty-fifth  Edward  III.,  fro)n  wliich  we 
have  borrowed  the  noble  provision  against  constructive  treason,  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Arbitrary  arrests,  for  no  crime  known, 
defined  or  liuiited  by  law,  but  for  pretended  off"ences,  herded  together 
under  the  general  and  most  comprehensive  name  of  "treasonable  prac- 
tices," had  been  so  frequent,  in  the  worst  periods  of  English  history,  that 
in  the  langua.;e  of  the  Act  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  "  no  man  knew  how  to 
behave  himself,  or  what  to  do  or  say,  for  doubt  of  the  pains  of  treason.'* 


I  ^ft-"  •  ■   •'    • ^    ^•^>^ 


. *jt  »'■ 


THE   CO]S"SCEIPTIOX    BILL. ARBITRARY    ARRESTS.    463 

The  statute  of  Edward  the  Third  had  cut  all  these  fungous,  toadstool 
treasons  up  by  the  root ;  and  yet,  so  prompt  is  arbitrary  power  to  de- 
nounce all  opposition  to  it  as  treasonable,  that,  as  Lord  Hale  observes, 

"  Things  were  so  carried  by  parties  and  factions,  in  the  succeeding  reign  of 
Richard  the  Second,  that  this  statute  was  but  little  observed,  but  as  this  or  that 
party  got  the  better.  So  the  crime  of  high  treason  was,  in  a  manner,  arbitrarily 
imposed  and  adjudged  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  party  which  was  to  ie  judged ;  which 
by  various  vicissitudes  and  revolutions,  miscliiefed  all  parties,  first  and  last,  and  left 
a  great  unsettledness  and  unquietness  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  was  one  pf 
the  occasions  of  the  unhappiness  of  the  king." 

And  he  adds,  that 

"It  came  to  pass  that  almost  every  ofiFence  that  was,  or  seemed  to  be,  a  breach 
of  the  faith  and  allegiance  due  to  the  king,  was,  by  construction,  consequence,  and 
interpretation,  raised  into  the  offence  of  high  treason." 

Richard  the  Second  procured  an  Act  of  Parliament — even  he  did  not 
pretend  to  have  power  to  do  it  by  proclamation — declarinpr  that  the 
bare  purpose  to  depose  the  king,  and  to  place  another  in  his  stead, 
without  any  overt  act,  was  treason ;  and  yet,  as  Blackstone  remarks,  so 
little  effect  have  over-violent  laws  to  prevent  crime,  that  within  two 
years  afterward  this  very  prince  was  both  deposed  and  put  to  death. 
Still  the  struggle  for  arbitrary  and  despotic  power  continued;  and  up 
to  the  time  of  Charles  the  First,  at  various  periods,  almost  every  con- 
ceivable offence  relating  to  the  government,  and  every  form  of  opposi- 
tion to  the  king,  was  declared  high  treason.  Among  these  were  exe- 
crations against  the  king;  calling  him  opprobrious  names  by  public 
writing;  refusing  to  abjure  the  Pope;  marrying  without  license,  certain 
of  the  king's  near  relatives ;  derogating  from  his  royal  style  or  title ; 
impugning  his  supremacy,  or  assembling  riotously  to  the  number  of 
twelve,  and  refusing  to  disperse  on  proclamation.  But  steadily,  in 
better  times,  the  people  and  the  Parliament  of  England  returned  to  the 
spirit  and  letter  of  the  Act  of  Edward  the  Third,  passed  by  a  Parliament 
which  now,  for  five  hundred  years,  has  been  known  and  honored  as 
Parllamentum  Benedictum,  the  "  blessed  Parliament" — ^just  as  this 
Congress  will  be  known,  for  ages  to  come,  as  "  The  Accursed  Congress" 
— and  among  many  other  acts,  it  was  declared  by  a  statute,  in  the  first 
year  of  the  Fourth  Henry's  reign,  that  "  in  no  time  to  come  any  treason 
be  judged,  otherwise  than  as  ordained  by  the  statute  of  king  Edward 
the  Third."  And  for  nearly  two  hundred  years,  it  has  been  the  aim  of 
the  lawyers  and  judges  of  England  to  adhere  to  the  plain  letter,  spirit, 
and  intent  of  that  act,  "to  be  extended,"  in  the  language  of  Erskine,  in 
his  noble  defence  of  Hardy,  "  by  no  new  or  occasional  constructions — 
to  be  strained  by  no  fancied  analogies — to  be  measured  by  no  rules  of 
political  expediency — to  be  judged  of  by  no  theory — to  be  determined 


464  vallandigham's  speeches. 

by  the  wisdom  of  no  individual,  however  wise — but  to  be  expounded  by 
the  simple,  genuine  letter  of  the  hisv." 

Sucii,  sir,  is  the  law  of  treason  in  England  to-day;  and  so  much  of 
the  just  and  admirable  statute  of  Edward  as  is  applicable  to  our  form 
of  crovernment,  was  embodied  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
The  men  of  1787  were  well  read  in  history  and  in  Enorlish  constitutional 
law.  They  knew  that  monarchs  and  governments,  in  all  ages,  had  strug- 
gled to  extend  the  limits  of  treason,  so  as  to  include  all  opposition  to  those 
ift  power.  They  bad  learned  the  maxim  that,  miserable  is  the  servitude 
where  the  law  is  either  uncertain  or  unknown,  and  had  studied  and 
valued  the  profound  declaration  of  Montesquieu,  that  "  if  tlie  crime  of 
treason  be  indeterminate,  that  alone  is  sufficient  to  make  any  government 
degenerate  into  arbitrary  power."     Hear  Madison,  in  the  Federalist : 

"  As  nciv-fangkd  and  artificial  treasons  have  been  the  great  engines  by  which 
violent  factions,  the  natural  offspring  of  free  governments,  have  usually  wreaked 
their  alternate  raaligniiy  on  each  other,  the  convention  have,  with  great  judgment, 
opposed  a  barrier  to  this  peculiar  danger,  by  inserting  a  constitutional  definition 
of  tlic  crime,  fixing  the  proof  necessary  for  the  conviction  of  it,  and  restraining 
the  Congress,  even  in  punishing  it,  from  extending  the  consequences  of  guilt  be- 
yond the  person  of  its  author." 

And  Story,  not  foreseeing  the  possibility  of  such  a  party  or  Admin- 
istration as  is  now  in  power,  declared  it  "■  aro  impassuhle  barrier  against 
arbitrary  constructions,  either  by  the  courts  or  by  Congress,  upon  the 
crime  of  treason."  "  Congress" — that,  sir,  is  the  word,  for  he  never 
dreamed  that  the  President,  or,  still  less,  his  clerks,  the  cabinet  minis- 
ters, would  attempt  to  declare  and  punish  treasons.  And  yet,  what 
have  we  lived  to  hear  in  America  daily,  not  in  political  harangues,  or 
the  press  only,  but  in  official  proclamations  and  in  bills  in  Congress! 
Yes,  your  high  officials  talk  now  of  "  treasonable  practices,"  as  glibly 
*'  as  girls  of  thirteen  do  of  puppy  dogs."  Treasonable  practices  !  Dis- 
loyalty !  Who  imported  these  precious  phrases,  and  gave  them  a  legal 
settlement  here?  Your  Secretary  of  War.  He  it  was  who,  by  com- 
mand of  our  most  noble  President,  authorized  every  marshal,  every 
sheriff,  every  township  constable,  or  city  policeman,  in  every  State  in 
the  Union,  to  fix,  in  his  own  imagination,  what  he  might  choose  to  call 
a  treasonable  or  disloyal  practice,  and  then  to  arrest  any  citizen  at  his 
discretion,  without  an  accusing  oath,  and  without  due  process,  or  any 
process  of  law.  And  now,  sir,  all  this  monstrous  tyranny,  against  the 
whole  spirit  and  the  very  letter  of  the  Constitution,  is  to  be  deliberately 
embodied  in  an  Act  of  Congress !  Your  petty  provost-marshals  are  to 
determine  what  treasonable  practices  are,  and  "  inquire  into,"  detect, 
spy  out,  eavesdrop,  ensnare,  and  then  inform,  report  to  the  chief  spy  at 
Washington.     These,  sir,  are  now  to  be  our  American  liberties  under 


THE   COISTSCEIPTIOjS^    BILL. AEBITEART   ARRESTS.    465 

your  Administration.  There  is  not  a  crowned  head  in  Europe  who 
dare  venture  on  such  an  experiment.  IIow  long  think  you  this  people 
will  submit?  But  words,  too — conversation  or  public  speech — are  to 
be  adjudged  "treasonable  practices."  Men,  women,  and  children  are 
to  be  haled  to  prison  for  free  speech.  Whoever  shall  denounce  or  op- 
pose this  Administration — whoever  may  alBrm  that  war  will  not  restore 
the  Union,  and  teach  men  the  gospel  of  peace,  may  be  reported  and 
arrested,  upon  some  old  grudge,  and  by  some  ancient  enemy,  it  may 
be,  and  imprisoned  as  guilty  of  a  treasonable  practice. 

Sir,  there  can  be  but  one  treasonable  practice,  under  the  Constitution, 
in  the  United  States.  xVdmonished  by  the  lessons  of  English  history, 
the  framers  of  that  instrument  defined  what  treason  is.  It  is  the  only 
oifence  defined  in  the  Constitution.  We  know  what  it  is.  Every  man 
can  tell  whether  he  has  committed  treason.  He  has  but  to  look  into 
the  Constitution  to  find  out.  But  neither  the  Executive,  nor  Conofress, 
nor  both  combined,  nor  the  courts,  have  a  right  to  declare,  either  by 
pretended  law,  or  by  construction,  that  any  other  offence  shall  be  trea- 
son, except  tliat  defined  and  limited  in  this  instrument.  What  is  trea- 
son ?  It  is  the  highest  offence  known  to  the  law — the  most  execrable 
crime  known  to  the  human  heart — the  crime  oi  loesce  majestatis ;  of  the 
parricide  who  lifts  his  hand  against  the  country  of  his  birth  or  his  adop- 
tion. "  Treason  afjainst  the  United  States,"  savs  the  Constitution, 
"  shall  consist  only  in  levying  war  against  them,  or  in  adhering  to  their 
enemies,  giving  them  aid  and  comfort."  (Here  a  Republican  member 
nodded  several  times  and  smiled,  and  Mr.  V.  said :)  Ah,  sir,  I  under- 
stand you.  But  was  Lord  Chatham  guilty  of  legal  treason,  treasonable 
aid  and  comfort,  when  he  denounced  the  war  against  the  Colonies,  and 
rejoiced  that  America  had  resisted  ?  Was  Burke,  or  Fox,  or  Barre 
guilty,  when  defending  the  Americans,  in  the  British  Parliament,  and 
demanding  conciliation  and  peace?  Were  even  the  Federalists  guilty 
of  treason,  as  defined  in  the  Constitution,  for  "giving  aid  and  comfort" 
to  the  enemy,  in  the  war  of  1812  ?  Were  the  Wliigs  in  1S4G  ?  Was 
the  Ohio  Senator  liable  to  punishment,  under  the  Constitution,  and  by 
law,  who  said,  sixteen  years  ago,  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  when  we  were 
at  war  with  Mexico,  "  If  I  were  a  Mexican  as  I  am  an  American,  I  would 
greet  your  volunteers  with  bloody  hands,  and  welcome  them  to  hospita- 
ble graves?"  Was  Abraham  ^Lincoln  guilty,  because  he  denounced 
that  same  war,  while  a  Representative  on  the  floor  of  this  house  ?  Was 
all  this  "adhering  to  the  enemy,  giving  them  aid  and  comfort,"  within 
the  meaning  of  this  provision  ? 

A  Member.     The  Democratic  papers  sjiid  so. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.     Sir,  I  am  speaking  now  as  a  lawyer,  and  as  a 
legislator,  to  legislators  and  lawyers  acting  under  oath  and  the  other 
30- 


466  vallandigham's  speeches. 

special  and  solemn  sanctions  of  this  Chamber,  and  not  in  the  loose  lan- 
guage of  the  political  canvass.  And  I  repeat,  sir,  that  if  such  had  been 
the  intent  of  the  Constitution,  the  whole  Federal  party,  and  the  whole 
Wliiu  party,  and  tlitir  Representatives  in  this  and  the  other  Chamber, 
might  have  been  indicted  and  punished  as  traitors.  Yet,  not  one  of 
them  was  ever  arrested.  And  shall  they,  or  their  descendants,  under- 
take now  to  denounce  and  to  punish,  as  guilty  of  treason,  every  man 
who  opposes  the  policy  of  this  Administration,  or  is  against  this  civil 
war,  and  for  peace  upon  honorable  terms?  I  hope,  in  spite  of  the  hun- 
dreds of  your  provost-marshals,  and  all  your  threats,  that  there  will  be 
so  much  of  opposition  to  the  war,  as  will  compel  the  Administration  to 
show  a  decent  respect  for,  and  yield  some  sort  of  obedience  to,  the 
Constitution  and  laws,  and  to  the  ricchts  and  liberties  of  the  States  and 
of  the  people. 

But  to  return;  the  Constitution  not  only  defines  the  crime  of  treason, 
but,  in  its  jealous  care  to  guard  against  the  abuses  of  tyrannic  power, 
it  expressly  ascertains  the  character  of  the  proof,  and  the  number  of 
witnesses  necessary  for  conviction,  and  limits  the  punishment  to  the 
person  of  the  otFender,  thus  going  beyond  both  the  statute  of  Edward, 
and  the  common  law.  And  yet  every  one  of  these  provisions  is  ignored 
or  violated  bv  this  bill. 

"  No  person."  says  the  Constitution,  "shall  be  convicted  of  treason" — as  just 
defined — "unless  on  the  testimony  of  two  vjitncsses." 

Where,  when,  and  by  whom,  sir,  are  the  two  witnesses  to  be  ex- 
amined, and  under  what  oath?  By  your  provost-marshals,  jour  cap- 
tains of  cavalry  ?  By  the  jailers  of  your  military  bastiles,  and  inside  of 
forts  Warren  and  Lafayette  ?  Before  an-est,  upon  arrest,  while  in 
prison,  when  discharged,  or  at  any  time  at  all  ?  Has  any  witness  ever 
been  examined  in  any  case  heretofore  ?  What  means  the  Constitution 
by  declaring  that  no  person  shall  be  convicted  of  treason  "  unless  on 
the  testimony  of  two  witnesses  .^"  Clearly,  conviction  in  a  judicial  court, 
upon  testimony  openly  given  under  oath,  with  all  the  sanctions  and 
safeguards  of  a  judicial  trial  to  the  party  accused.  And  if  any  doubt 
there  could  be  upon  this  point,  it  is  removed  by  the  sixth  article  of  the 
amendments. 

But  the  Constitution  proceeds  : 

"  Unless  on  the  testimony  of  two  witnesses  to  the  same  overt  act." 

But  words,  and  still  less,  thoughts  or  opinions,  sir,  are  not  acts;  and 
yet,  nearly  every  case  of  arbitrary  arrest  and  imprisonment,  in  the 
wholly  loyal  States  at  least,  has  been  for  words  spoken  or  written,  or 
for  thoughts,  or  opinions  supposed  to  be  entertained  by  the  party 
arrested.     And  that,  too,  sir,  is  precisely  what  is  intended  by  this  bill. 


THE   CONSCEIPTION    BILL. AKBITEAEY   AEEESTS.    467 

But  further : 

"  The  testimony  of  two  witnesses  to  the  same  overt  act,  or  confession  in  open 
courV 

What  court  ?  The  court  of  some  deputy  provost-marshal  at  home, 
or  of  your  provost-marshal  general,  or  Judge-Advocate  General,  here  in 
Washington  ?  The  court  of  a  military  bastile,  whose  gates  are  shut  day 
and  night  against  every  officer  of  the  law,  and  whose  very  casemates  are 
closed  to  the  light  and  air  of  heaven?  Call  you  that  "  open  court  J" 
Not  so  the  Constitution.  It  means  judicial  court,  law  court,  with  judge 
and  jury  and  witnesses  and  counsel ;  and  to  speak  of  it  as  anything 
else,  is  a  confusion  of  language,  and  an  insult  to  intelligence  and 
common  sense.  Yet,  to-night,  you  deliberately  propose  to  enact  the 
illegal  and  unconstitutional  executive  orders,  or  proclamations,  of  last 
summer,  into  the  semblance  and  form  of  law. 

"  To  inquire  into  treasonable  practices,"  says  the  bill.  So,  then,  your 
provost-marshals  are  to  be  deMty  spies  to  the  grand  spy,  holding  his 
secret  inquisitions  here  in  Washington,  upon  secret  reports,  sent  by 
telegraph  perhaps,  or  through  the  mails,  both  under  the  control  of  the 
Executive.  What  right  has  he  to  arrest  and  hold  me  without  a  hear- 
ing, because  some  deputy  spy  of  his  chooses  to  report  me  guilty  of 
"  disloyalty,"  or  of  "  treasonable  practices  ?"  Is  this  the  liberty  secured 
by  the  Constitution  ?  Sir,  let  me  tell  you,  that  if  the  purpose  of  this 
bill  be  to  crush  out  all  opposition  to  the  Administration  and  the  party 
in  power,  you  have  no  constitutional  right  to  enact  it,  and  not  force 
enough  to  compel  the  people,  your  masters,  to  submit. 

But  the  enormity  of  the  measure  does  not  stop  here.  Says  the  Con- 
stitution : 

"Congress  shall  make  no  law  abridging  the  freedom  of.  speech,  or  of  the 
press." 

And  yet  speech — mere  words,  derogatory  to  the  President,  or  in 
opposition  to  his  Administration,  and  his  party  and  policy,  have  over 
and  over  again,  been  reported  by  the  spies  and  informers  and  shadows, 
or  other  minions,  of  the  men  in  power,  as  "  disloyal  practices,"  for  which 
hundreds  of  free  American  citizens,  of  Caucasian,  not  African,  descent, 
have  been  arrested  and  imprisoned  for  months,  without  public  accusa- 
tion, and  without  trial  by  jury,  or  trial  at  all.  Even  upon  pretence  of 
^uilt  of  that  most  vague  and  indefinite,  but  most  comprehensive  of  all 
offences,  "  discouraging  enlistments,"  men  have  been  seized  at  midnight, 
and  dragged  from  their  beds,  their  homes,  and  their  families,  to  be  shut 
up  in  the  stone  casemates  of  your  military  fortresses,  as  felons.  And 
now,  by  this  bill,  you  propose  to  declare,  in  the  form  and  semblance  of 
law,  that  whoever  "  counsels  or  dissuades"  any  one  from  the  perform- 
ance   of  the  military  duty  required  under  this  conscription,  shall  be 


468  vallandigham's  speeches. 

summarily  arrested  by  your  provost-marshals,  and  held,  without  trial, 
till  ftie  draft  shall  have  been  completed.  Sir,  even  the  "Sedition  Law" 
of  '98  was  constitutional,  merciful,  and  just,  compared  with  this  execrable 
enactment.  Wisely  did  ilamilton  ask,  in  the  Federalist,  "  What  signi- 
fies a  declaration  that  the  liberty  of  the  press  (or  of  speech)  shall  be 
inviolably  preserved,  when  its  security  must  altogether  depend  on 
public  opinion,  and  on  the  general  spirit  of  the  people,  and  of  the  Gov- 
ernment." 

But  this  extraordinary  bill  docs  not  stop  here. 

"  No  person,"  says  the  Constitution, — "no  person  shall  be  held  to  .fhswer  for  a 
capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime,  unless  on  a  presentment  or  indictment  of  a 
grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising  in  the  land  and  naval  force,  or  in  the  militia 
when  in  actual  service  in  time  of  war  or  pubhc  danger ;  nor  be  deprived  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law." 

Note  the  exception.  Every  man  jiot  in  the  military  sen-ice,  is 
exempt  from  arrest,  except  by  due  pWcess  of  law,  or,  being  arrested 
without  it,  is  entitled  to  demand  immediate  inquiry  and  discharge, 
or  bail ;  and  if  held,  then  presentment  or  indictment  by  a  grand 
jury  in  a  civil  court,  and  according  to  the  law  of  the  land.  And  yet 
you  now  propose,  by  this  Bill,  in  addition  to  the  1,23'7,000  men  who 
have  voluntarily  surrendered  that  great  right  of  freemen,  second  only 
to  the  ballot — and,  indeed,  essential  to  it — to  take  it  away  forcibly,  and 
against  their  consent,  from  three  millions  more,  whose  only  crime  is 
that  they  happen  to  have  been  so  born  as  to  be  now  between  the  ages 
of  twenty  and  forty -five.  Do  it,  if  you  can,  under  the  Constitution  ;  and 
when  you  have  thus  forced  them  into  the  military  service,  they  will  be 
subject  to  military  law,  and  not  entitled  to  airest  only  upon  due  pro- 
cess of  law,  nor  to  indictment  by  a  grand  jury  in  a  civil  court.  But 
you  cannot,  you  shall  not — because  the  Constitution  forbids  it — deprive 
the  whole  people,  also,  of  the  United  States  of  these  rights,  "  inestimable 
to  them,  and  formidaV)le  to  tyrants  only,"  under  "  the  war  power,"  or 
upon  pretence  of  "  military  necessity,"  and  by  virtue  of  an  act  of  Con- 
gress creating  and  defining  new  treasons,  new  off'ences,  not  only 
unknown  to  the  Constitution,  but  expressly  excluded  by  it. 

But  acrain : 

"In  all  criminal  prosecutions," — 

and  wherever  a  penalty  is  to  be  imposed,  imprisonment  or  fine  inflicted, 
it  is  a  criminal  prosecution — 

"In  all  criminal  prosecutions,"  says  the  Constitution,  "the  accused  shall  enjoy 
the  right  to  a  speedy  and  pubhc  trial,  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district 
wherein  the  crime  shall  have  been  committed,  which  district  shall  have  been  pre- 
viously ascertained  by  law ;  and  to  be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  tho 


THE    CONSCRIPTION    BILL. AKBITRAEY   ARRESTS.    469 

accusation;  to  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  him;  to  have  compulsory 
process  for  obtaining  witnesses  in  his  favor,  and  to  have  the  assistance  of  counsel 
for  his  defence." 

Do  you  propose  to  allow  any  of  these  rights?  No,  sir — none — not 
one;  but,  in  the  twenty -fifth  section,  you  empower  these  provost-mar- 
shals of  yours  to  arrest  any  man — men  not  under  military  law — whom 
he  may  chargi»,  or  any  one  else  may  charge  before  him,  with  "  counsel- 
ling or  dissuading"  from  military  service,  and  to  hold  him  in  confinement 
indefinitely,  until  the  draft  has  been  completed.  Sir,  has  it  been  com- 
pleted in  Connecticut  yet?  Is  it  complete  in  New  York?  lias  it  been 
given  up?  If  so  now,  nevertheless  it  was  in  process  of  pretended  execu- 
tion for  months.  In  any  event,  you  propose,  here,  to  leave  to  the 
discretion  of  the  Executive  the  time  during  which  all  persons  arrested, 
under  the  provisions  of  this  Bill,  shall  be  held  in  confinement  upon 
that  summary  and  arbitrary  arrest;  and  when  he  sees  fit,  and  then  only, 
shall  the  accused  be  delivered  over  to  the  civil  authorities  for  trial. 
A.nd  is  this  the  speedy  and  public  trial  by  jury,  which  the  Constitution 
secures  to  every  citizen  not  in  the  military  service  ? 

"  The  State  and  district  wherein  the  crime" — 

Yes,  crime,  for  crime  it  must  be,  known  to  and  defined  by  law,  to 
justify  the  arrest — 

"  Shall  have  been  committed,  which  district  shall  have  been  previously  ascer- 
tained by  law." 

Do  you  mean  to  obey  that,  and  to  observe  State  lines,  or  district 
lines  in  arrests  and  imprisonments  ?  Has  it  ever  been  done  ?  Were 
not  Keyes,  and  Olds,  and  Mahoney,  and  Sheward,  and  my  friend  here  to 
the  left  (Mr.  Allen,  of  Illinois),  and  my  other  friend  from  Maryland 
(Mr.  May),  dragged  from  their  several  States  and  districts,  to  New 
York,  or  Massachusetts,  or  to  this  city  ?  The  pirate,  the  murderer, 
the  counterfeiter,  the  thief — you  would  have  seized  by  due  and  sworn 
process  of  law,  and  tried  forthwith,  by  jury,  at  home  ;  but  honorable 
and  guiltless  citizens,  members  of  this  House,  your  peers  upon  this 
floor,  were  thrust,  and  may,  again,  under  this  bill,  be  thrust  into 
distant  dungeons  and  bastiles,  upon  the  pretence  of  some  crawling, 
verminous  spy  and  informer,  that  they  have  "  dissuaded"  some  one 
from  obedience  to  the  draft,  or  are  otherwise  guilty  of  some  "  treason- 
able practice." 

"And  to  be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusation." 

How?  By  presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury.  When? 
"  Speedily,"  says  the  Constitution.  "  When  the  draft  is  completed," 
says  this  bill ;  and  the  President  shall  determine  ih^t.     But  who  is 


470  yallandigiiam's  speeches. 

to  limit  and  define  "  counselling  or  dissuading"  from  military  service  ? 
Who  shall  ascertain  and  inform  the  accused  of  the  "  nature  and  cause" 
of  a  "treasonable  practice?"  Who,  of  all  the  thousand  victims  of  arbi- 
trary arrests  within  the  last  twenty-two  months,  even  to  this  day,  has  been 
informed  of  the  charge  against  him,  although  long  since  released? 
Yet  even  the  Roman  pro-consul,  in  a  conquered  province,  refused  to 
send  up  a  prisoner,  without  signifying  the  crimes  with  which  he  was 
charged. 

"To  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  him." 

Witnesses,  indeed !  Fortunate  will  be  the  accused  if  there  be  any 
witnesses  against  him.  But  is  your  deputy  provost-marshal  to  call 
them  ?  0,  no ;  he  is  only  to  "  inquire  into,  and  report."  Is  your 
provost-marshal  general  ?  What !  call  witnesses  from  the  remotest 
parts  of  the  Union,  to  a  secret  inquisition  here  in  Washington.  Has 
any  "  prisoner  of  State,"  hitherto,  been  confronted  with  witnesses,  at 
any  time  ?  Has  he  even  been  allowed  to  know  so  much  as  the  names 
of  his  accusers  ?  Yet,  Festus  could  boast,  that  it  was  not  the  manner 
of  the  Romans,  to  punish  any  man,  "  before  that  he,  which  is  accused, 
have  the  accusers  face  to  face." 

"  To  have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining  witnesses  in  his  favor." 

Sir,  the  compulsory  process  will  be,  under  this  bill,  as  it  has  been 
from  the  first,  to  compel  the  absence  rather,  of  not  only  the  witnesses, 
but  the  friends  and  nearest  relatives  of  the  accused ;  even  the  wife  of 
his  bosom,  and  Itis  children — the  inmates  of  his  own  household.  News- 
papers, the  Bible,  letters  from  home,  except  under  surveillance,  a  breath 
of  air,  a  sight  of  the  waves  of  the  sea,  or  of  the  mild,  blue  sky,  the 
song  of  birds,  whatever  was  denied  to  the  prisoner  of  Chillon,  and 
more  too ;  yes,  even  a  solitary  lamp  in  the  casemate,  where  a  dying 
prisoner  struggled  with  death,  all  have  been  refused  to  the  American 
citizen  accused  of  disloyal  speech  or  opinions,  by  this  most  just  and 
merciful  Administration. 

And,  finally,  says  the  Constitution  : 

"  To  have  the  assistance  of  counsel  for  his  defence." 

And  yet  your  Secretary  of  State,  the  *•  conservative"  Seward — the 
confederate  of  Weed,  that  treacherous,  dissembling  foe  to  constitutional 
liberty,  and  the  true  interests  of  his  country — forbade  his  prisoners  to 
employ  counsel,  under  penalty  of  prolonged  imprisonment.  Yes, 
charged  with  treasonable  practices,  yet  the  demand  for  counsel  was  to 
be  dealt  with  as  equal  to  treason  itself.  Here  is  an  order,  signed  by  a 
minion  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  read  to  the  prisoners  at  Fort  Lafayette,  on 
the  3d  of  December,  1861 : 


THE  consckiptio:n^  bill. — aebite'aet  arrests.  471 

"  I  am  instructed,  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  to  inform  you,  that  the  ■Department 
of  State,  of  tlie  United  States,  will  not  recognize  any  one  as  an  attornty  for  political 
prisoners,  and  will  look  with  distrust  upon  all  applications  for  release  throu;,'h  such 
channels-  and  that  such  applications  wdl  ht  reyurdtd  as  additioind  lua^oiis  for  de- 
clining to  release  the  prisoners." 

And  here  is  another  order  to  the  same  effect,  dated  "  l)ep;irtiiieut  of 
State,  Washington,  November  27,  1861,"  signed  by  William  li.  Sew- 
ard himself,  and  read  to  the  prisoners  at  Fort  Warren,  on  the  29th  of 
November,  1861 : 

"Discountenancing  and  repudiating  all  such  practices." 

The  disloyal  practice,  forsooth,  of  employing  counsel: 

"  The  Secretary  of  State  desires  that  all  the  State  prisoners  may  understand 
that  they  are  expected  to  revoke  all  such  engagtmcrds  now  existing,  and  avoid  any  here- 
after, as  they  can  only  lead  to  new  complications  and  embarrassments  to  the  cases 
of  prisoners,  on  whose  behalf  the  Government  might  be  disposed  to  act  with  liberality." 

Most  magnanimous  Secretary  !  Liberality  toward  men  guilty  of  no 
crime,  but  who,  though  they  had  been  murderers  or  pirates,  were  enti- 
tled, by  the  plain  letter  of  the  Constitution,  to  have  "  the  assistance  of 
counsel  for  their  defence."  Sir,  there  was  but  one  step  further  possi- 
ble, and  t.hat  short  step  was  taken  some  months  later,  vvlien  the  prison- 
ers of  State  were  required  to  make  oath,  as  the  condition  of  their  dis- 
charge, that  they  would  not  seek  their  constitutional  and  legal  remedy 
in  Court,  for  the  wrongs  and  outrages  inflicted  upon  them. 

Sir,  incredible  as  all  this  will  seem  some  years  hence,  it  has  happened, 
all  of  it,  and  more  yet  untold,  within  the  last  twenty  months,  in  the 
United  States.  Under  executive  usurpation,  and  by  virtue  of  presiden- 
tial proclamations  and  cabinet  orders,  it  has  been  done  without  law  and 
against  Constitution ;  and  now  it  is  proposed,  I  repeat,  to  sanction  and 
authorize  it  all,  by  an  equally  unconstitutional  and  void  act  of  Congress. 
Sir,  legislative  tyranny  is  no  more  tolerable  than  executive  tyranny.  It 
is  a  vain  thing  to  seek  to  cloak  all  this  under  the  false  semblance  of 
law.  Liberty  is  no  more  guarded  or  secured,  and  arbitrary  power  no 
more  hedged  in  and  limited  here,  than  under  the  executive  orders  of 
last  summer.  We  know  what  has  already  been  done,  and  we  will  sub- 
mit to  it  no  longer.  Away,  then,  with  your  vain  clamor  about  disloy- 
alty, your  miserable  mockery  of  treasonable  practices.  We  have  read, 
with  virtuous  indignation,  in  history,  ages  ago,  of  an  Englishman  exe- 
cuted for  treason,  in  saying  that  he  would  make  his  son  heir  to  the 
crown,  meaning  of  his  own  tavern-house,  which  bore  the  sign  of  the 
crown ;  and  of  that  other  Englishman,  whose  favorite  buck  the  king 
had  killed,  and  who  suffered  death  as  a  traitor,  for  wishing,  in  a  fit  of 
,  vexation,  that  the  buck,  horns  and  all,  were  embowelled  in  the  body  of 
the  king.     But  what  have  we  not  lived  to  see  in  our  own  time  ?     Sir, 

• 


472  vallandigham's  speeches. 

not  raany  months  ago,  this  Administration,  in  its  great  and  tender 
mercy  toward  the  six  hundred  and  forty  prisoners  of  State,  confined, 
for  treasonable  practices,  at  Camp  Chase,  ne;ir  the  capital  of  Ohio, 
appointed  a  commissioner,  an  extra-judicial  functionary,  unknown  to 
the  Constitution  and  laws,  to  hear  and  determine  the  cases  of  the  sev- 
eral parties  accused,  and  with  power  to  discharge  at  his  discretion,  or 
to  banish  to  Johnson's  Island,  in  Lake  Erie.  Among  the  political  pris- 
oners called  before  him,  was  a  lad  of  fifteen,  a  newsboy  upon  the  Ohio 
River,  whose  only  offence  proved,  upon  inquiry,  to  be,  that  he  owed 
fifteen  cents,  the  unpaid  balance  of  a  debt  due  to  his  washer-woman — 
possibly  a  woman  of  color — who  had  him  arrested  by  the  provost-mar- 
shal, as  guilty  of  "  disloyal  practices."  And  yet,  for  four  weary  months 
the  lad  had  lain  in  that  foul  and  most  loathsome  prison,  under  military 
charge,  lest,  peradventure,  he  should  overturn  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  ;  or,  at  least,  the  Administration  of  Abraham  Lincoln  ! 

Several  Members  on  the  Democratic  side  of  the  House.  Oh 
no ;  the  case  cannot  be  possible. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  It  is  absolutely  true,  and  it  is  one  only  among 
many  such  cases.  Why,  sir,  was  not  the  hump-back  carrier  of  the 
New  York  Daily  News,  a  paper  edited  by  a  member  of  thjs  House, 
arrested  in  Connecticut,  for  selling  that  paper,  and  hurried  off  out  of 
the  State,  and  imprisoned  in  Fort  Lafayette  ^  And  yet,  Senators  and 
Representatives,  catching  up  the  brutal  cry  of  a  bloodthirsty  but  infatu- 
ated partisan  press,  exclaim,  "  the  Government  has  been  too  lenient ; 
there  ouijht  to  have  been  more  arrests !" 

Well  did  Hamilton  remark,  that  "  arbitrary  imprisonments  have 
been,  in  all  ages,  the  favorite  and  most  formidable  instruments  of 
tyranny  ;"  and  not  less  truly,  Blackstone  declares,  that  they  are  "a  less 
public,  a  less  striking,  and  therefore  a  more  dangerous  engine  of  arbi- 
trary government,"  than  executions  upon  the  scaffold.  And  yet,  to- 
night, you  seek  here,  under  cloak  of  an  act  of  Congress,  to  authorize 
these  arrests  and  imprisonments,  and  thus  to  renew  again  that  reign  of 
terror  which  smote  the  hearts  of  the  stoutest  among  us,  last  summer, 
as  "  the  pestilence  which  walketh  in  darkness." 

But  the  Constitution  provides  further,  that 

"  The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers,  and 
effects,  against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated,  and  no 
warrants  shall  issue,  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by  oath  or  aEBrmation, 
and  particularly  describing  the  place  to  be  searched,  and  the  persons  or  things  to 
be  seized." 

Sir,  every  line,  letter,  and  syllable  of  this  provision  has  been  repeat- 
edly violated,  under  pretence  of  securing  evidence  of  disloyal  or  trea-  . 
aonable  practices ;  and  now  you  propose,  by  this  bill,  to  sanction  the 


THE   CONSCEIPTION   BILL. ARBITRARY    ARRESTS.    473 

past  violations,  and  authorize  new  and  continued  infractions  in  future. 
Your  provost-marshals,  your  captains  of  cavalry,  are  to  "inquire  into 
treasonable  practices."  How  ?  In  any  way,  sir,  that  they  may  see 
fit;  and  of  course,  by  search  and  seizure  of  person,  house,  papers  or 
eflfects ;  for,  sworn  and  appointed  spies  and  informers  as  they  ai'e,  they 
will  be  and  can  be  of  no  higher  character,  and  no  more  scrupulous  of 
law,  or  right,  or  decency,  than  their  predecessors  of  last  summer,  ap- 
pointed under  executive  proclamations  of  no  more  or  less  validity  than 
this  bill,  which  you  seek  now  to  pass  into  a  law.  Sir,  there  is  but  one 
step  further  to  take.  Put  down  the  peaceable  assembling  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  the  right  of  petition  for  redress  of  grievances ;  the  "  right  of  the 
people  to  keep  and  bear  arms ;"  and  finally,  the  right  of  suffi-age  and 
elections,  and  then  these  United  States,  this  Republic  of  oursj  will  have 
ceased  to  exist.  And  that  short  step  you  will  soon  take^  if  the  States 
and  the  people  do  not  firmly  and  speedily  check  you  in  your  headlong 
plunge  into  despotism.  What  yet  remains  ?  The  Constitution  declares 
that: 

"The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution,  of  certain  rights,  shall  not  be  constriled 
to  deny  or  disparage  others  retained  by  the  people." 

And  again : 

•'The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor 
prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the 
people." 

And  yet,  under  the  monstrous  doctrine,  that  in  war  the  Constitution 
is  suspended,  and  that  the  President  as  Commander-in-chief,  not  of  the 
military  forces  only,  but  of  the  whole  people  of  the  United  States, 
may,  under  "the  war  power,"  do  whatever  he  shall  think  necessary  and 
proper  to  be  done,  in  any  State  or  part  of  any  State,  however  remote 
from  the  scene  of  warfare,  every  right  of  the  people  is  violated  or 
threatened,  and  every  power  of  the  States,  usui'ped.-  Their  last  bul- 
wark, the  militia,  belonging  solely  to  the  States,  when  not  called,  as 
such,  into  the  actual  service  of  the  United  States,  you  now  deliberately 
propose,  by  this  bill,  to  sweep  away,  and  to  constitute  the  President 
supreme  military  dictator,  with  a  standing  army  of  three  millions  and 
more  at  his  command.  And  for  what  purpose  are  the  militia  to  be 
thus  taken  from  the  power  and  custody  of  the  States?  Sir,  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  Constitution  anticipated  all  this,  and  were  denounced  as 
raving  incendiaries  or  distempered  enthusiasts.  "  The  Federal  Govern- 
ment," said  Patrick  Henry,  in  the  Virginia  Convention, 

"  Squints  towards  monarchy.  Your  President  may  easily  become  a  king.  If 
ever  he  violates  the  laws,  will  not  the  recollection  of  his  crimes  teach  him  to  make  ana 
hold  push  for  the  American  throne?  Will  not  the  immense  difference  between  being 
master  of  every  thing,  and  being  ignominiously  tried  and  punished,  powerfully  ex- 


474  vallandigham's  speeches. 

cite  him  to  make  this  bold  push  ?  But,  sir,  wliere  ia  tlio  existing  force  to  punish 
him?  Can  he  not,  at  tlie  head  of  liis  army,  beat  down  all  opposition?  Wliat  then 
will  become  of  you  and  your  rights?     Will  not  absolute  despotism  ensue?"* 

And  yet,  for  these  appreliensions,  Henry  lias  been  the  subject  of 
laughter  and  pity  for  seventy  years.  Sir,  the  instinctive  love  o'f  liberty 
is  wiser  and  more  far-seeing  than  any  philosophy. 

•  Hoar,  now,  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  the  Federalist.  Summing  up 
what  he  calls  the  exaggerated  and  improbable  suggestions  respecting 
the  power  of  calling  for  the  services  of  the  militia,  urged  by  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  Constitution,  whose  writings  ho  compares  to  some  ill-writ- 
ton  tale,  or  romance  full  of  frightful  and  distorted  shapes,  he  says: 

"The  militia  of  Xew  Hampshire  (tliey  allege)  is  to  be  marched  to  Georgia;  of 
Georgia  to  New  Hampshire ;  of  New  York  to  Kentucky ;  and  of  Kentucky  to  Lake 
Champhain.  Xay,  the  debts  due  to  the  French  and  Dutch,  are  to  be  paid  in  miUtia- 
men,  instead  of  Louis  d'ors  and  ducats.  At  one  moment,  there  is  to  be  a  large 
army  to  lay  prostrate  the  liberties  of  the  people ;  at  another  moment,  the  militia  of 
Virginia  are  to  be  dragged  from  their  homes,  Sve  or  six  hundred  miles,  to  tame  the 
republican  contumacy  of  Massachusetts;  and  that  of  MassachusdUs  is  to  be  irans- 
pmted  an  equal  distance,  lo  subdue  the  refractory  haughtiness  of  the  aristocratic  Vir- 
ginians. Do  persons  who  rave  at  this  rate,  imagine  that  their  eloquence  can  im- 
pose any  conceits  or  absurdities  upon  the  people  of  America,  for  infalUble  truths  ?" 

And  yet,  sir,  just  three-quarters  of  a  century  later,  we  have  lived  to 
see  these  raving  conceits  and  absurdities  practised,  or  attempted,  as 
calmly  and  deliberately  as  though  the  power  and  the  right  had  been 
expressly  conferred. 

And  now,  sir,  listen  to  the  answer  of  Hamilton  to  all  this — himself 
the  friend  of  a  strong  government,  a  Senate  for  life,  and  an  Executive 
for  life,  with  the  sole  and  exclusive  power  over  the  militia,  to  be  held 
by  the  National  Government ;  and  the  Executive  of  each  State  to  be 
appointed  by  that  Government : 

"  If  there  should  be  an  army  to  bo  made  use  of  as  the  engine  of  despotism,  what 
need  of  the  militia  ?  If  there  should  be  no  army,  whither  would  the  militia,  irritated 
at  being  required  to  undertake  a  distant  and  distressing  expedition,  for  the  purpose  of 
riveting  the  chains  of  slavery  upon  a  part  of  their  countrymen,  direct  their  course,  but 

TO  THE  SEATS  OF  THE  TTRAXTS  WHO  HAD  MEDITATED  SO  FOOUSH,  AS  WELL  AS  SO 
■WICKED,  A  PROJECT;  TO  CKUSQ  THEM  DC  THEIK  IMAGINED  IXTKEXCHMEXTS  OF  POWEB, 
AND  MAKE   THEM   AN   EXAMPLE  OF  THE  VENGEANCE   OF   AN   ABUSED    AND   INOENSED 

PEOPLE?  Is  this  the  way  in  which  usurpers  stride  to  dominion  over  a  numerous 
and  enlightened  nation  ?" 

Sir,  Mr.  Hamilton  was  au  earnest,  sincere  man,  and,  doubtless,  wrote 
what  he  believed :  he  was  an  able  man  also,  and  a  philosopher ;  and 

*  And  the  reporter,  unable  to  follow  the  vehement  orator  of  the  Revolution,  adds, 
"Here,  Mr.  Henry  strongly  and  pathetically  expatiated  on  the  probability  of  the 
President's  enslaving  America,  and  the  horrid  consequences  that  must  result." 


^_i^J 


THE    CONSCRIPTION   BILL. AEBITEAEY   ABEE5TS.    475 

yet  how  little  did  he  foresee,  that  just  seventy -five  years  later,  that 
same  Government,  which  he  was  striving  to  establish,  would,  in  despe- 
rate hands,  attempt  to  seize  the  whole  militia  of  the  Union,  and 
convert  them  into  a  standingf  arniv,  indefinite  as  to  the  time  of  its 
service,  and  for  the  very  purpose  of  not  only  beatinw  down  State 
sovereignties,  but  of  abolishing  even  the  domestic  and  social  institu- 
tions of  the  States.  • 

Sir,  if  your  objects  are  constitutional,  you  have  power  abundantly 
under  the  Constitution,  without  infraction  or  usurpation.  The  men 
who  framed  that  instrument,  made  it  both  for  war  and  peace.  Xay 
more,  they  expressly  provide"  for  the  cases  of  insurrection  and  rebellion. 
You  have  ample  power  to  do  all  that  of  right  you  ought  to  do — all 
that  the  people,  your  masters,  permit  under  their  supreme  will,  the 
Constitution,  Confine,  then,  yourselves  within  these  limits,  and  the 
rising  storm  of  popular  discontent  will  be  hushed. 

But  I  return,  now,  again,  to  the  arbitrary  arrests  sanctioned  by 
this  Bill,  and  by  that  other  consummation  of  despotism,  the  Indemnity 
and  Suspension  Bill,  now  in  the  Senate.  Sir,  this  is  the  very  question 
which,  as  I  said  a  little  while  ago,  we  made  a  chief  issue  before  the 
people  in  the  late  elections.  You  did,  then,  distinctly  claim — and  you 
found  an  Attorney-General  and  a  few  other  venal  or  very  venerable 
lawyers  to  defend  the  monstrous  claim — that  the  President  had  the 
right  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus;  and  that  every  one  of 
these  arrests  was  legal  and  justifiable.  We  went  before  the  people 
with  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  in  our  hands,  and  the  love  of  liberty 
in  our  hearts;  and  the  verdict  of  the  people  was  rendered  against  vou. 
"\Ye  insisted  that  Congress  alone  could  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  Ta\<Ax\, 
require  it.  And  to-day,  sir,  that  is  beginning  to  be  again  the  acknowl- 
edged doctrine.  The  Chief-Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  so  ruled  in  the  Merriman  case ;  and  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Wisconsin,  I  rejoice  to  say,  has  rendered  a  like  decision ;  and  if  the 
qu€;stion  be  ever  brought  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  undoubtedly  it  will  be  so  decided,  finally  and  forever.  You 
yourselves  now  admit  it;  and  at  this  moment,  your  "Indemnity  Bill," 
a  measure  more  execrable  than  even  this  Conscription,  and  liable  to 
every  objection  which  I  have  urged  against  it,  undertakes  to  authorize 
the  President  to  suspend  the  writ  all  over,  or  in  any  part  of,  the 
United  States.  Sir,  I  deny  that  you  can  thus  delegate  your  right  to 
the  Executive.  Even  your  own  power  is  conditional.  You  cannot 
suspend  the  writ  except  where  the  public  safety  requires  it,  and  then 
only  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion.  A  foreign  war,  not  brought 
home  by  invasion,  to  our  own  soil,  does  not  authorize  the  suspension^ 


476  VAIXAXDIGHAJ^S   SPEECHES. 

m  any  ease.  An<l  who  is  to  judge  whether  and  where  there  is  reb^ 
ham  or  Jnvasion,  *n<l  whether  and  when  the  public  safetv  iv<jnires  that 
the  writ  be  s«sp«»d«Mi  ?  Congress  alone,  and  thev  cannot  sobedtute  the 
jodsnieBiL  of  ihe  President  for  their  own.  Sack,  too.  is  the  opinioii  of 
Storr :  "The  right  to  jjmds^,"  says  he,  **  whether  eiigenoy  has  ariseBr 
most  eitimaiwtiw  h^em^  to  that  b-Ddy.''  Bat  not  so  unier  the  UII 
w4ich  pa?k<ed  this  House  the  other  day. 

Xor  b  this  alL  Consn^ess  aione  can  i!»aB|>eiid  the  writ.  When  and 
where!  In  c*«es  of  rel>eIlion  or  inraaioB.  Where  rebellion?  Wheie 
nivasioft  ?  Am  I  to  be  told^  that  because  there  is  rebellion  in  Sonth 
CaroGo^  the  writ  of  kahea*  corptt*  can.  be'  sospended  in  Pennsylvania 
aad  Massachusetts  where  there  is  notte !  Is  that  the  meaning  of  the 
Coostitntioo  f  No,  ar ;  the  writ  can  be  saspended  only  whete  the 
lebeDiott  or  invasion  exists — in  States^  or  parts  of  States  alone,  where 
the  enemv.  foreign  or  donaestie,  is  found  in  anss ;  and  moreorer,  the 
patEc  safetT  can  leqsire  its  suspension  only  where  there  is  rehei&Mi 
or  irviision.  <>itside  of  these  cooditions.  Congress  has  no  more 
asthority  to  scisjpead  the  writ,  than  the  Pieadesfc — and  least  of  all, 
to  sttspeod  it  Tritfciwl  baifeitioa  as  to  timcv  »d  generally  all  orer  tiie 
TTnioQ,  and  in  States  not  innaded  or  in  rebdfioa.  Sodi  an  aetT  of 
Coo^ress  is  of  no  more  TsIIdity,  and  no  more  ortitied  to  obedienee, 
tkas  an  Exeentive  prodamatioe ;  and  in  any  jo^  and  impartial  comt, 
I  Tentore  to  aSrm  that  it  wiD  be  so  decided. 

Bat,  again,  sir,  even  thoogh  the  writ  be  coBstitBtioaaDy  saspended, 
there  is  no  more  poww  u  the  Preadent  to  make  arbitrary  arrests  than 
without  it.  The  gcatkman  from  Bhode  I^and  (Mr.  Sheffield)  said, 
very  justly — and  I  am  sorry  to  see  horn  lead  any  sopport  to  this  btB — 
that  the  saapeasioa  of  the  writ  of  hmhimt  carjmit  does  not  authorize 
arrests,  exeept  ^m*  sworn  warrant,  ehax^in^  sofiie  ofenee  known  to 
ik&  lav,  aad  tUaigciiiai  to  the  pablie  safety.  He  is  right.  It  does  not; 
aad  ^s  was  so  admitted  in  the  fa«U  whidi  passed  the  Senate,  in  1807. 
Tke  saspeteaism  onijr  desaes  release  npoa  hail,  or  a  discharge  without 
trial,  to  pasties  tfaas  anested.  ft  sa^peads  no  other  i^fat  ot  privilege 
^ider  the  CooatitDtioa — eertao^yaot  the  r%ht  to  a  speedy  puUie  trial, 
by  JBiy,  in  a  civil  Coort.  It  di^ie^KS  with  no  "  doe  process  of  law," 
except  only  that  partieabr  writ.  It  does  not  take  away  the  daim  fi» 
to  which  a  party  illega%  anested,  or  I^sBj  aiRsted,  hot 
prohahie  camae^  is  eatitied. 
And  yet,  e^et*  wheii!,  it  has  beea  asnaaed,  that  a  saqwaaoa  of  the 
writ  (Ahshn*  corpu$y  is  a  naipraiina  of  the  entire  Cuaititutioa,  aad  of 
aS  laws,  so  fbr  as  the  posoaal  ri^is  of  the  citizen  are  eoneened,  and 
thaf^  Aerelbre,  the  mome^  it  is  saqicaded,  either  by  the  Preadeat, 
as  hcRlsfiiR  asserted,  or  by  Co^cas,as  aov  about  to  be  aothomed. 


THZ    C03r5CEIPn03r   BILL. ABBTTBA3Y    AHEET5,    477 


alittiait  arrats,  viAcMt  svon  •jjijut,  or  otfaer  ifae  proee»  c^  bw, 
mar  be  raaie  at  tke  sole  pkasare  or  diseretioa  o^  die  EaeeaEiveu  Itdl 
TOO  bo;  and  tfal,  akhoo^  ve  auv  wit  be  dile  va  t^e  the  bodtjr  of 
tibe  paitT  anestinl  froa  tke  prorg  t  ■ir^bJ  bv  wiit  of  Aaiwri 
ef«rr  osber  nebtand  |Mwikge  of  the  Co«aritatio«  a»d  rf  &e 
lav  remaiiB  iataet,  iaebidaig  tbe  rig^  to  reart  tbe 
tresjpasser,  vbo,  wi&oi^  dae  anboiitv,  woald  Tiobrte  jo«r 
eatcT  Toar  booBCr  wfaieb  is  joar  casde ;  aad,  a&rr  al  Ais,  tbe  f^kt 
adao  to  [anwcLMie  am  m&etmemt,ar  iar  iamaasea^m  tbe  >rf— r  or 
aggia»itfion  of  tbe  ease  bbbj  deauad.  Aad  TCt,  as  limmsA  \rj  Toa  of 
tbe  portT  ia  power,  tbe  saspeasioa  of  ^e  vri:  is  a  totaJ  abro^:;atiaa  of 
tbe  CoBsthatioa  aad  of  tbe  fiboties  of  ikt  aaam,  aad  tbe  ligbix  of 
&e  Slate&  Tllij,  tbea,  sir,  rtop  vitb  aiiitMH  arrests  aad  iia|aiiiiBa 
merits?  Does  aar  bsb  before  tbat  it  ail  aad  beref  KotsabamI 
kaned  bistoTT.  Tbe  gaffi^ti-? !  ti?  r=i3o«~- !  t}?f  -^il! -t?«  fellows 
aext. 

So.  vbea  oae  <rf  Aoee  :  _    -    _  — 

from  bis  ova  Gps — aade  eoai|tfaiat  to  tbe  ^^ 
JBstice  of  bis  ancst,  aad  tbe  sei^ezity  : :  :le 
be«  sobjected  ia  Ae  exercise  of  £.~ 
alksed  ^aia^  bim,  '^Wbr,  ar^  s^ 
mci^  ^aifiea^  i iwmilsr f  af  j^  "nj 
piaia;  me  mugki  hae gemt  fmrlker."     1  . 
tbe  goedeaiaa,  aad  be  rep&ed :  -^  Ab !  tbas  is  '  :  ^m 

tke  same  ligfe^  to  bebead,  as  to  arres: 
coBMstotbis?    Tba^  an;  b*  as  s     - 

bfe  caoa^  to  be  BB{vi9oaed  v: ^ 

qae^ioBofliiieordeadbjTeiaenk  — -Jui 

that  a  maa  baA  vil  be  gire  fer  1 - 

Sr.  TS.  is  this  vbi^  b^ik  rem:  ^  A  giarfb'wiaa  apoa  &e  oiber 

ade  as^ed,  tbb  aftoaooa,  vbidi  ^-^nj  vas  to  rise  aow  m.  i\.n^aAwm. 
Tbe  aasaer  of  tbe  able  amA  gafiaat  g^dana  froM  Feaa^iiaaia  pib. 
Kddfe)  vas  pertiaeatl  aad  JKt— ''No  party,  b^  m 
It  is  Bot,  let  aie  tefl  joa,  tbe  leaders  of  parties  vbo  bes^ 
Xever.  Did  aaj  oae  of  tbe  dirtii^aiAed  «Aaiacteg  of  tbe 
of  1T7&  participate  ia  tbe  daowii^  of  tiie  tea  iato  Bostoa  bsbor! 
T\1m>  was  it !  Wbo,  to^.  caa  mamt  tbe  actors  at  A«t  aonr  beanie 
seene !  It  was  not  Haaeock,  aof  SjaiMcl  AdiBs.  ^-^r  J--'  -  A  'sea.  aor 
PanrJek  Henr,  aor  Wadn«toa;  btft  aMa  aat  —  '^r^ 

mea  a^kaie  ;  obacaie  ^Ka  bc^n  real  icrobMboas :  c 
rct%  aad  ooatrol  tibeaL     Aad  il^  iadeed,  ve  ar^  ^- 

&e  asaal  stages  of  revobitioa,  it  vffl  aot  l^ 

party,  aoi  I,  aot  &e  aMa  vidi  aK  be:  .    —        ^  _r  ^ — :: 


478  yallaxdigham's  speeches. 

amonj;  tlie  people,  now  unknown  and  unnoted,  who  will  hurl  your  tea 
into  the  harbor  ;  and  it  may  even  be  in  Boston  once  again  ;  for  the  love 
of  liberty,  I  would  fain  believe,  lingers  still  under  the  shadow  of  the 
monument  on  Bunker  Hill.  But  sir,  wc  seek  no  revolution  except 
through  the  ballot-box.  The  conflict  to  which  we  challenge  you,  is  not 
of  arms,  but  of  argument.  Do  you  believe  in  the  virtue  and  intelligence 
of  the  people?  Do  you  admit  their  capacity  for  self-government? 
Have  they  not  intelligence  enough  to  understand  the  right,  and  virtue 
enough  tD  pursue  it  ?  Come  then  :  meet  us  through  the  press,  and  with 
free  speech,  and  before  the  assemblages  of  the  people,  and  we  will  argue 
these  questions,  as  we  and  our  fathers  have  done  from  the  beginning  of 
the  Government — "Are  we  right,  or  you  right,  we  wrong,  or  you 
wrong  ?"  And  by  the  judgment  of  the  people,  we  will,  one  and  all, 
abide. 

Sir,  I  have  done  now  with  my  objections  to  this  Bill.  I  have  spoken 
as  though  the  Constitution  sunived,  and  was  still  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land.  But  if,  indeed,  there  be  no  Constitution  any  longer,  limiting 
and  restraining  the  men  in  power,  then  there  is  none  binding  upon  the 
States  or  the  people.  God  forbid.  We  have  a  Constitution  yet,  and 
laws  yet.  To  them  I  appeal.  Give  us  our  rights  ;  give  us  known  and 
fixed  laws ;  give  us  the  judiciary ;  arrest  us  only  upon  due  process  of 
law;  give  us  presentment  or  indictment  by  grand  juries;  speedy  and 
public  trial ;  trial  by  jury  and  at  home;  tell  us  the  nature  and  cause  of 
the  accuaRtion  ;  confront  us  with  witnesses ;  allow  us  witnesses  in  our 
behalf,  arid  the  assistance  of  counsel  for  our  defence ;  secure  us  in  our 
persons,  our  houses,  our  papers,  and  our  effects ;  leave  us  arms,  not  for 
resistance  to  law  or  against  rightful  authority,  but  to  defend  ourselves 
from  outrage  and  violence ;  give  us  free  speech  and  a  free  press ;  the 
right  peaceably  to  assemble ;  and  above  all,  free  and  undisturbed  elec- 
tions and  the  ballot — take  our  sons,  take  our  money,  our  property,  take 
all  else,  and  wc  will  wait  a  little,  till  at  the  time  and  in  the  manner 
appointed  by  Constitution  and  law,  wc  shall  eject  you  from  the  trusts 
you  have  abused,  and  the  seats  of  power  you  have  dishonored,  and  other 
and  better  men  shall  reign  in  your  stead. 


PEACE LIBERTY THE    CONSTITUTION.  479 


PEACE— LIBERTY— THE   CONSTITUTIOX* 

Luke  F.  Cozans,  President  of  the  Association,  in  a  few  remarks  in- 
troduced the  orator  of  the  evening,  Hon.  C.  L.  Vallandingham,  who  on 
rising  was  received  with  loud  and  protracted  cheers.  When  silence 
was  restored  he  spoke  as  follows  : 

Gentlemen  : — I  was  not  aware  till  after  my  arrival  here,  a  few  honrs 
ago,  of  the  stereotyped  threats  that  this  man  or  that  man,  representing 
certain  sentiments,  should  not  be  permitted  to  speak  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  Had  I  known  it,  1  probably  would  have  taken  an  earlier 
train  and  been  here  a  few  bouts  in  advance.  (Applause.)  The  spirit 
of  those  before  me  sufficiently  proves  that  the  time  for  all  that  has 
gone  by.  I  am  here  to  speak  to-night  regardless  of  all  threats;  and 
if  there  were  any  disagreeable  consequences  to  follow,  regardless  of 
those  consequences.  (Loud  cheers.)  But  there  are  none,  and  I  am  here 
to  speak  just  such  things  as,  in  my  judgment,  a  true  patriot  and  a 
freeman  ought  to  speak.  (Enthusiastic  cheers.)  I  accepted  the  in- 
vitation very  cordially,  to  address  this  Association,  and  came  at  no  in- 
considerable personal  sacrifice,  because  the  exigencies  of  the  times 
■which  are  again  upon  us,  with  threatening  aspect,  not  only  justify,  but, 
in  my  judgment,  demand  of  every  public  man,  that  all  personal  consid- 
erations should  be  laid  aside  for  the  public  good.  I  know  as  well  as  any 
one,  the  pressure  that  is  now  made  upon  the  Democratic  party,  with 
the  vain  hope  of  crushing  it  out.  The  men  who  are  in  power  at 
Washiiifjton,  extending:  their  acjencies  out  throuti-h  the  cities  and  Slates 
of  the  Union  and  threatening  to  reinaugurate  a  reign  of  terror,  may  as 
■well  know  that  we  comprehend  precisely  their  purpose.  T  beg  leave 
to  assure  you  that  it  cannot  and  will  not  be  permitted  to  succeed. 
(Applause.)  The  people  of  this  country  indorsed  it  once  because  they 
■were  told  that  it  was  essential  to  "  the  speedy  suppression  or  crushing 
out  of  the  rebellion"  and  the  restoration  of  the  Union  ;  and  they  so 
loved  the  Union  of  these  States,  that  they  would  consent  even  for  a 
little  while  under  the  false  and  now  broken  promises  of  the  men  in 
power,  to  surrender  those  liberties,  in  order  that  the  great  object  might, 
as  was  promised,  be  accomplished  speedil}^  They  have  been  deceived  ; 
instead  of  crushing  out  the  rebellion,  the  effort  has  been  to  crush  out 
the  spirit  of  liberty.     (Cheers.) 

The  conspiracy  of  those    ip  power   is  not  so  much  for  a   vigorous 

♦Speech  before  the  "Democratic  Union  Association  of  New  York  City," 
March  7,  1863.  This  speech  was  made  wholly  without  preparation,  and  was 
not  revised  by  Mr.  V.  tiU  in  type.  It  is  included  here,  not  because  of  any  rhetorical 
excellence  in  it,  but  for  its  historic  value. 


480  vallandigham's  speeches. 

prosecution  of  tho  war  against  rebels  in  the  South  as  against  the  Democ- 
racy in  peace  at    home.     (Cheers.)     And  now  no  eftort,  however  organ- 
ized, {ireineditated,  or    well  concerted  to  restore  those   times  through 
which  wo  have  passed,  and   which  will  stand  upon  the  pages  of  history 
as  the  darkest  of  all  the  annals  of  America,  will  be  permitted  to  suc- 
ceed, and   the   sooner    they  comprehend  this,  the  better,  and  the   less 
trouble  there  will  be  in  the  land.     (Applause.)     We   were  born  to  an 
inhfcfritance  of  freedom  ;  the  Constitution  came  to  us  from  our  fathers ; 
it  guaranteed, to  us  rights  and  liberties  older  than  the  instrument  itself — 
God-given,  belong! uii    to   the   people,  belonging  to  men,  because  God 
made  them  free — and  we  do  not  mean  to  surrender  one  jot  or  tittle  of 
those  rights   and  Ubieties.     (Loud  cheers.)     Yet  nothing  but  the  con- 
sciousiKSs    that  just   at    this    moment    men   desperately  wicked   have 
deliberately  determined  to  make  one  last  expiring  eftort  to  break  down 
the  reaction  setting  in  from   the  people  against  the  policy  of  this  Ad- 
ministration, against  the  party  in  power,  and  ti?fe  conviction  that  it  was 
necessary  to    meet  that   effort  instantly    and   everywhere,   could  have 
induced  me  to  be  here  to-night,  wearied  and  exhausted  as  I  am  with 
the   labors    of   the    Congress,    which,    thank    God,  has   just   expired. 
(Laughter  and  cheers.)     Absent  from  home  for  many  months,  my  own 
business  neglected,  the  politics  of  my  own  State  allowed  to  pass  by  for 
the    present — nothing,  I  say,  but  these    considerations  could  have  in- 
duced me   to   be  present  to-night;  but  I    rejoice  that  I  am  here,  and 
look  in  the  face,  and  am    looked  in  the  face  by  freemen — men  whose 
eyes  speak  the  determination  of  their  hearts   to  meet  this  crisis    with 
•whatsoever  agencies  this  Administration  may  choose  to  make  necessary. 
(Applause.)     Gentlemen,  I  am  no  revolutionist;  I  am  in  all  things   as 
far  as  practicable,  a  peace  man,  and  want  peace  and  order  in  this  coun- 
try.    I  am  ready  to  submit  to  many  things  that  I  think  had  better  not 
be  attempted,  just  so  long  as  assemblages  of  the  people  and  the  ballot, 
which  are  the  great  correctives  of  evil,  and  which  were  intended  by 
our  fathers  to  be  the  machinery  by  which  peaceable  revolution  should 
be  accomplished  in  our  government,  remain  untouched;  but  I  say  to 
the  Administration: — "Lay  not  your   hands  at  the  foundation  of  the 
fabric  of  our  liberties :  you  may  lop  off  a  branch  here  and  there,  and 
it  will  survive ;  we    may  tolerate  that  for  the   sake  of  a   greater  good 
hereafter ;  but    whenever   you    reach  forth  your  hand  to  strike  at  the 
very  vitals  of    public    liberty,   then    the  people  must    and    will  deter- 
mine in  their  sovereign  capacity,  wh.ut  remedy  the  occasion    demands. 
(Cheers.)     But  we  have  not  as  yet  come  to  that.     I  have  seen  enough 
already  to  satisfy  me  upon  that  subject,  not  in   the  West   only,  about 
which  there   can  be  no  doubt,   but  in  Philadelphia,  the   most  terror- 
ridden  citv  in  the  Union,  eighteen  months  ago.     The  spirit  of  the  men 


1 


PEACE LIBERTY THE    CONSTITUTIOISr.  481 

born  within  the  sound  of  Independence  bell,  yet  survives  in  all  its 
grandeur  and  its  majesty  (apphiuse)  ;  and  I  think  I  can  answer,  not 
merely  from  what  I  see  here  to-night,  but  from  what  elsewhere  in  other 
ways  I  have  learned,  that  the  spirit  of  the  people  of  New  York  is  not 
behind.  This  is  not,  indeed,  Cooper  Institute.  (Laughter.)  It  may  not 
hold  as  many  people  ;  but  tliis  is  a  spontaneous  meeting.  It  was  not 
prearranged  according  to  a  fixed  programme;  it  is  not  a  chronic  or 
periodic  assemblage  of  a  certain  class  of  persons  for  a  certain  purpose. 
Sir,  I  know  something  about  the  style  in  which  those  meetings  are 
gotten  up,  and  everybody  here  comprehends  them.  Their  sole  effect, 
so  far  as  they  have  any,  is  in  distant  portions  of  the  country,  where 
they  are  telegraphed — and  at  a  distance,  like  every  thing  else,  they  look 
exceedingly  charming.  They  are  very  much  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Cincinnati,  so-called  and  grossly  miscalled,  Union  meeting,  not  long 
ago,  which  was  in  spirit  and  in  effect  a  contemptible  failure.  And  very 
much,  too,  after  the  fashion  of  the  meeting  at  Columbus,  of  which  you 
have  read  in  the  telegraph  ;  or  the  meeting  at  Indianapolis.  Some 
operator,  true  to  his  vocation,  lied.  He  says  that  the  latter  was  attend- 
ed by  thirty  thousand  people.  I  venture  the  assertion  that  not  two 
thousand  outside  of  the  city  of  Indianapolis,  were  present  on  the  oc- 
casion. But,  the  meeting  last  night  svas  a  preconcerted  effort ;  it 
was  a  part  of  the  programme.  .  It  was  artificial  ;  this  is  natural.  They 
who  spoke  there  were  pleading  for  power — I  speak  for  liberty.  (Loud 
applause.)  They  spoke  to  men  in  power  and  holding  office  ;  I  speak 
to  and  for  the  people.  There  is  not  one  single  office-holder,  I  venture 
to  say,  in  this  meeting,  who  does  not  derive  his  title  from  the  people. 
Was  there  a  single  one  present  last  night  who  did  ?  This,  then,  is 
■the  difference.  Coming  immediately  from  Washington,  having  wit- 
nessed with  the  common  satisfaction  of  the  people  of  this  country,  the 
expiration  of  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  I  am  here  to  speak,  in  the 
first  place,  briefly  of  some  things  which  have  been  done  in  that  body 
during  the  recent  session,  and  the  session  which  preceded  it.  I  will 
not  go  back  so  far  as  the  extra  session  when  general  insanity  prevailed 
throughout  the  country,  and  when  the  representatives  of  the  people 
were,  perhaps,  to  a  large  degree  excusable ;  because  while  they  had 
doubtless  contributed  to  that  insanity,  it  was  reflected  back  upon  them 
again  ;  but  after  a  period  given  for  meditation,  after  the  logic  of  events 
had  begun  to  work  out,  after  the  experiment  of  war  had  been  tried  for 
one  year,  it  seems  to  me  that  wise  men,  men  in  whose  hands  you 
can  with  safety  deposit  the  power  that  belongs  to  you,  should  liave 
meditated  a  little  while,  and  with  some  degree  of  wisdom  have  proceeded 
to  legislate  for  the-  true  interests  of  the  country.  Did  they  do  it  ? 
What  has  been  the  legislation  financially,  to  begin  with  that  ?  Where 
31 


482  vallandigham's  speeches. 

were  we  then  ?    What  was  vonr  currency  ?     Gold.     How   much  have 
you  seen   latoly  of  it  ?     You   read  of  it  in  the  stock  marl<et,  impalpa- 
ble, invisible — a  thing  that  belongs  to  the  past ;  it  will  go  into  the  col- 
lections of  those  who  have  a  curiosity  for   coins.     What  is  your  cur- 
rency now  ?     ("Greenbacks.")    Greenbacks;  nor  is  that  all  (■' Postage 
stamps").     Postage  currency,  and  to  what  extent?     Nearly  a  thousand 
millions  already.     That  is  what  is  oti'ered  to  you.     It  is  the  entertain- 
ment to  which  you  were  invited,  or  rather  which    you  were   compelled 
to  accept,  though    not   invited  to  in  1860.     Your  public    debt — what 
was  it  then  ?     The  enormous  sura  of  seventy-one  millions.     Would  you 
not  be  willing  to  compromise  on  that   to-day  ?     No   doubt  even  they 
to  whom  that  word  "  compromise"  is  most  odious,  who  feel  towards  it 
as  Roineo  towards   the  woid  "  banishment,"  would  be  very  willing  to 
settle   the   debt  of   this   country  at   seventy-one  millions.     It  is   now, 
actually  or  prospectively,  because  the  appropriations  reach  that  extent 
— §2,27  7,000,000.     That  is  the  sum  which   this  Congress  has  appro- 
priated.    Tliey  have  given    to  tliis   tremendous  debt,  the  power   that 
belongs  to  it  by  the  issuing  of  what  is  called  a  government  currency, 
binding  everybody  by  some  sort  of   paper  tie,  to   the  government — by 
the  establishment  of  a  grand  national  paper-mill,  a  national  bank,  and 
through  the  other  schemes  of  finance  which  were  formed  in  the  brain, 
or  found  a  lodgment  there    somehow   or  other,  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.     They  have,  by  this  instrumentality,  obtained   absolute 
control  of  the  entire  country.     Through  a  tax   law,  the  like  of  which 
never  was   imposed  upon  any  but  a  conquered  people,  they  have  pos- 
session actually  or   prospectively,  of  the  entire  property  of  the  people 
of    the    country.     Thus  the    purse,    through    the    swift    and    anxious 
servility  of  a   Congress  which  was    intended   by  our  fathers  to  be  the 
watchful  guardian  of  the  people's  money  and  the  people's  property, 
is  now  absolutely  and  unqualifiedly  for  two  years  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Executive  of  the  United  States.     In   ordinary  times,  the   control  of 
that  pur>e  was  regarded   by  the  jealous  lovers  of  liberty,  by  the  men 
who  preceded  those  in  power,  by  the  men  who  sat  in  your  places  twenty, 
thirty,  or  forty  years  ago,  as    one  of  the    instruments  of  despotism — 
then  even  when  our  revenue  was  down  as  low  as  twenty  millions  of 
dollars.     It  was   then  that  with  jealousy,  with   the  most   scrutinizing 
care,  every  appropriation  of  money  was    allowed    to  pass  through  the 
House  of  Representatives  or  the   Senate  of  the  United    States.     And 
yet  this  Congress,  since    the  4th  of  July,  1861,  some  twenty  months 
or  less,  has  appropriated,  as  I  have  said,  the  enormous  sum,  and  put  it 
at  the  disposal  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  of  62,277,000- 
000.    And  for  what?    To  control  that  which  in  part  is  the  life-blood  of 
the  nation,  its  business,  its  currency,  all  that  enter,  into  the  business 


pi.<t. 


PEACE — LIBERTY THE    CONSTITUTION.  483 

transactions  of  life.  '  Part  of  it  was  intended  in  the  beginning  as  a  fund 
wherewith  to  set  up  the  negro  trade.  (Laughter.)  It  entered  the 
mind  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  the  idea  of  compensated  emancipation,  as 
he  calls  it,  must  be  carried  out  practically,  and  it  found  a  place  in  his 
messao-e  and  was  repeated  in  the  annual  message,  and  that  most  delicate 
term  to  conceal  a  most  odious  thing — compensated  emancipation- — was 
given  to  it  with  the  vain  idea  of  deceiving  the  people — compensated 
emancipation  meaning,  being  interpreted  into  good  old-fashioned 
English,  Greenback  Abolition.  (Laughter  and  cheers.)  The  minority 
in  the  Senate  and  in  the  House,  through  their  pertinacity  of  purpose, 
surrounded  though  they  were  by  bayonets  and  by  despotic  power  on 
every  side,  succeeded  at  last  in  defeating  this  scheme  for  the  purchase 
of  negroes;  but  nearly  all  the  other  plans  were  consummated.  Thus, 
as  I  have  said,  the  purse  was  placed  under  the  control  of  the  Executive 
for  two  years.  You  have  surrendered  it — you  cannot  .take  it  back 
again.  It  has  gone  into  the  hands  of  men,  of  the  party  of  Abolition 
— men  who,  base  and  coward-like,  for  the  sake  of  appointment  when 
their  terms  should  expire,  after  the  4th  of  March,  sold  out  the  pre- 
cious deposit,  which  you  put  in  their  keeping.  (A  voice — "  What  can 
we  do?")  We  will  see.  We  have  the  ballot-box  yet.  (Applause.) 
We  can  do  what  we  are  doing  to-night,  and  we  will  do  it.  (Cheers.) 
We  can  vote  yet,  and  we  mean  to  vote,  and  more  than  that,  we  mean 
that  the  mandate  of  that  ballot-box  shall  be  carried  out  at  all  hazards. 
(Loud  applause.)  We  meet  those  men  fairly  under  the  Constitution 
and  laws  of  the  land,  and  propose  to  try  this  question  before  the  great 
tribunal  of  the  people.  As  I  have  said  before,  for  this  is  a  time  for  line 
upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept,  if  they  beat  us  we  will  submit, 
because  we  must  sujjrait  to  what  is  Constitution  and  law  ;  but  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  conquer  theui,  then,  by  the  Eternal,  they  must  and 
shall  submit.     (Loud  cheers.)     So  much  for  the  money — the  purse. 

And  now,  as  to  that  other  great  weapon  of  government — the  sword. 
What  have  yqur  "  misrepreseutatives"  done?  They  gave,  and  with 
your  consent,  ("  Never")  yes,  they  did ;  and  I  am  sorry  it  is  so,  my 
friends.  (A  voice — "  The  Republicans.")  No,  my  dear  sir.  Demo- 
crats did  it  too.  I  did  not.  (Cheers.)  If  I  had  had  my  way  there 
never  would  have  been  a  necessity  for  any  thing  of  the  kind — the  sword 
never  would  have  been  drawn,  and  we  never  would  have  had  civil  war. 
The  Crittenden  propositions  would  have  compromised  and  settled  this 
difficulty.  (Great  applause).  But  Congress,  in  the  beginning,  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  people,  in  a  fit  of  insanity,  as  I  think — no  dis- 
paragement to  them,  it  was  their  excessive  patriotism  that  led  to  it — 
but  tljey  did  give  first,  or  recognized-,  at  least,  the  giving  of  76,000 
men,  then  of  87,000,  then  of  637,000,  next  of  300,000  more,  and 


4S4  tallaxdigham's  spzecbes. 

300,000  more  yet  in  the  form  of  a  draft,  mating  in  all  of  volunteers 
some  937,000  men.  Tbev  went  out  to  the  field  voluntarily.  Your 
representatives  gave  to  the  President  the  control  of  that  number  of 
men — the  power  at  least  to  call  for  them — and  they  went,  and  your 
committees  helped  them  to  go.  There  was  no  place  where  more  was 
accomplbhed  in  th:\t  way  than  in  the  city  of  New  York.  It  was  then 
popular  to  advocate  ciiil  war,  to  enlist  or  procure  enlistments,  and  to 
address  war  meetings.  I  am  sorry  some  gentlemen  have  not  heard 
that  it  is  unpopular  now.  Their  habit  seems  to  get  control  of  their 
judgment.  As  long  as  the  people  said  so,  though  my  judgment  hum- 
bly disapproved  of  it,  I  was  content  to  remain  sUent,  and  >ee  the  ex- 
periment tried.  But  that  was  not^L  Not  only  have  those  937,000 
enlisted  men,  and  the  300,000  orafted  men — indeed,  I  might  say 
the  1.237,000  enlisted  men,  for  the  draft  was  used  only  to  comj>el  and 
procure  enlistments — not  only  have  ail  these  been  sent  into  the  field, 
or  at  lea*t  made  to  appear  on  the  pay  rolls,  but  in  the  very  expiring 
hoars  of  the  Consress,  which  died  and  went  to  its  own  place  at  12 
o'cl'jck  on  the  4ih  of  March,  your  misrepresentatives — ^for  such  they 
had  become — ^not  speaking  the  voice  of  the  people,  did  attempt  to 
clothe  the  President  with  the  power  of  conscripting  every  man  in  the 
ITnited  States  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  forty-five — ^to  compel 
him  to  enter  the  army  and  enable  the  President  to  keep  up  a  war 
•which,  bv  that  bill  itself  he  and  thev  confess  to  be  asrainst  the  will  of 
the  people.  (Applause.)  The%ill  is  an  admission  upon  the  record, 
that  they  cannot,  by  voluntary  enlistment,  obtain  more  soldiers  to  fight 
in  this  war.  Xo%v,  whereas,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
makes  the  dbtinction  between  the  regular  army  and  the  militia  of  the 
country;  whereas,  it  forbids  States  to  keep  a^standing  army,  and 
authorizes  the  United  States  to  do  it,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  leaves  to 
the  States  the  control  of  the  militia,  and  enables  the  President  or  Con- 
gress only  to  call  out  the  militia,  as  such,  for  certain  specified  purposes, 
and  for  a  limited  time,  reserving  to  these  States  the  appointment  of 
ofiBcers  and  the  discipline  of  the  militia  until  they  are  mustered  into 
the  service  of  the  United  States ;  this  bill  yet  undertakes  to  make  a 
standing  army  of  more  than  three  millions  of  the  people  for  three 
Tears  or  during  the  war.  How  Ions:  will  that  be  '  (A  voice — "Nine 
years.*")  Thus,  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  by  an  enactment  having  the 
form  of  law,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  have  surrendered,  ab- 
solutely, the  entire  military  power  of  the  country  to  the  President- 
Xow,  if  in  possession  of  the  purse  and  the  sword  absolutely  and  unqual- 
ifiedly, for  two  vears,  there  be  any  t%ing  else  wanting  which  describes  a 
dictatorship,  I  beg  to  know  what  it  is  ?  Why  did  they  not  imitate  the 
manhood  of  the  old  Roman  Senators  when  the  exigency  of  the  Repub- 


PEACE — LTBEETY THE   CO^iinUnOS.  -iSo 

lie,  in  their  judgment,  deniarded  it,  and  declare  Mr.  Lincoln  a  dictator 
in  terms  I — that  was  alone  absolatelr  what  they  meant — instead  d 
coward-like,  uridertakincr,  in  the  form  of  law  and  bv  the  abase  of  con- 
stitutional  power,  to  give  the  same  anthoritv  and  the  same  agencies  to 
establi-h  a  de>potbm,  as  would  have  been  implied  bj  the  direct  crea- 
tion of  a  dictatorsiup.  (Applause.)  That  bill  passed  the  Senate 
witboat  opposition,  and  much  has  been  said  upon  the  sabject,  and 
ajeat  oTatification  has  been  expressed  br  somei  Gentlemen,  it  was  a 
mistake,  an  accident,  not  iatentionaL  There  was  not  a  Democratic, 
conservative  Senator  who  was  not  opposed  to  it,  but  happening  to  be 
absent  at  the  hour  when  the  vote  was  taken,  the  dead  hoar  of  midnight, 

''  When  graTevards  yawn. 
And  bdl  iiaelf  brealfaes  out  cootJig^aD," 

their  votes  were  not  recorded ;  but  when  the  bill  came  to  the  House, 
the  minoritT  there  were  resolred  that  it  should  not  pass  without  a  severe 
scrntinv,  without  a  thorough  consideration,  without  all  the  redstanee^ 
bv  ]:^riLtmentarv  tactics  and  by  speech,  to  which  we  had  a  right  to  re- 
sort. It  was  announce-i  by  the  Chairman  of  the  Military  Committee 
that  no  debate  should  be  allowed  upon  the  biH,  and  what  b  called  the 
previous  question  was  demanded,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  ns  to  an 
immediate  vote  7  a  it  was  that  that  little  minority,  once  only  fire 
in  number,  but  grown  now  to  thirty,  thank  God — (cheers) — haring 
enouirh  to  call  the  Teas  and  nays,  resorte'l  to  what  is  the  last  refiige  of 
a  minority  in  a  legislature,  and  what  very  aptly  is  called  "  fillibuster- 
'ma.-  Yes,  we  "  fillibustered  "  on  that  bilL  (Laughter.)  We  did  not 
foUow  the  example  of  the  Abolition  Senators  in  Blinois,  who,  coming 
firesh  from  an  election,  where  they  had  been  rebuked  and  their  party 
repudiated,  vet  to  prevent  the  enactment  of  the  will  of  the  people  into  a  • 
law.  saw  fit  to  run  away  and  break  up  the  Senate-  We  stood  to  our 
posts,  and  the  only  complaint  they  had  to  prefia-  agunst  us  was  that 
we  stood  but  too  well.  Xor  did  we  imitate  the  rerolutionaiT  cxamj^ 
of  the  minority  in  the  Indiana  Legislature,  who  went  home  for  the 
same  purpose,  and  have  remaine"!  home  now  for  one  week.  We  did 
not  do  that ;  we  "  filibustere»J,^  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  horns  that 
little  minority  compelled  that  great  majority,  first,  to  yield  the  point 
of  debate,  and  then  to  adjourn  with  the  understanding  that  the  biH 
should  he  open  to  a  thorough  discussion.  And  it  was  so  opened ;  and 
such  a  discussion  as  the  reporters,  who  have  been  there  for  years,  and 
the  oldest  members  and  spectators,  have  all  united  in  the  testimony 
that  the  like  of  it  had  not  been  witnelsed  in  that  Capitol  for  mote  than 
twenty  years.     We  were  few,  oat 

"  Thrke  is  he  anced  thst  hsth  his  quarrel  just;" 


48G  vallandigham's  speeches. 

and  ours  was  the  justest  cause  that  ever  was  struggled  for.  We  spoke 
with  the  courage  of  freemen,  fully  conscious  that  we  were  standing  in 
the  very  breach  against  the  rushing  torrent  of  despotism,  and  as  we 
spoke  the  Felixes  of  Abolition  trembled,  and  they  gave  us  another  day, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  discussion,  so  conij)letely  had  they  been  master- 
ed that  they  consented  to  strike  out  every  provision  in  that  bill  that 
did  not  relate  to  it  purely  as  a  military  measure.  That  is  what  we 
gained  by  courage  and  firmness  and  manhood.  (Applause).  They  had 
provided  for  the  appointment  of  a  Provost-Marshal  in  every  congres- 
sional district,  with  power  to  inquire  into  and  report  disloyal  practices 
— such  as  we  are  engaged  in  here  to-night  (laughter) — to  report  what 
some  Democrat  had  said  in  opposition  to,  not  the  Government,  for 
Democrats  support  the  Government,  but  the  executive,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. That  was  stricken  out.  They  had  authoiizcd  the  Provost-Mar- 
shals— fellows  spread  all  over  the  country  in  every  congressional  district, 
with  the  rank  of  a  caj^ain  of  cavalry,  and  drawing  pay,  of  course — they 
had  authoiized  them  to  summarily  arrest  everybody  who  should  resist 
the  draft,  or  counsel  resistance,  or  oppose  it  in  any  way,  shape,  or  form, 
and  we  compelled  them  to  insert  a  provision  that  though  a  person 
might  be  thus  arrested,  summarily,  he  should  be  forthwith  handed  over 
to  the  civil  authorities  to  be  dealt  with.  (Applause.)  But,  as  origin- 
ally proposed,  the  bill  not  only  would  have  bu^  the  three  or  four 
millions  of  males  between  twenty  and  forty-five,  under  the  military 
control  of  the  President,  as  Commander-in-chief,  but  would  also  have 
placed  every  man,  woman,  and  child,  by  virtue  of  the  two  provisions 
that  were  stricken  out,  also  in  his  power.  Our  civil  rights  would  have 
been  gone,  and  our  judiciary  undermined,  and  he  would  have  been  an 
absolute  and  uncontrolled  dictator,  with  the  power  of  Cincinnatus,  but 
■without  one  particle  of  his  virtues.  (Cheers.)  Yet  unfortunately, 
■while  this  much  was  accomplished  on  that  bill,  the  same  tyrannical 
power  was  conferred  by  another  bill  which  passed  both  houses,  and  is 
now,  so  far  as  forms  are  concerned,  a  law  of  the  land — at  least  an  act 
of  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress.  (Laughter.)  It  authorizes  the  Presi- 
dent whom  the  people  made,  whom  the  people  had  chosen  by  the 
ballot-box  under  the  Constitution  and  laws,  to  suspend  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  all  over  the  United  States;  to  say  that  because  there  is 
a  rebellion  in  South  Carolina,  a  man  shall  not  have  freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  the  press,  or  any  of  his  rights  untrammelled  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  or  a  thousand  miles  distant.  That  was  the  very  ques- 
tion upon  which  the  people  passed  judgment  in  the  recent  elections, 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  question.  The  President  had  assumed 
to  exercise  this  ^ower  by  virtue  of  a  proclamation,  and  had  arrogated 
to  himself  the  prerogative,  long  since  exploded,  of  the  Kings  of  Eng- 


iiiMiyM^kiii& 


PEACE LIBERTY THE    CONSTITUTION.  487 

land.  He  had  exercised  this  liingly  prerogative,  and  the  people  had 
repudiated  it ;  they  had  said : — "  You  have  no  right  to  suspend  this 
writ,  you  have  no  power  of  arbitrary  arrest,  and  we  will  not  submit  to 
its  exercise."  Sir,  the  same  argument  which  was  addressed  to  the 
people  in  discussing  this  question  previous  to  the  October  and  No- 
vember elections  now  applies  to  this  so-called  act  of  Congress.  The 
Constitution  gives  the  power  to  Congress,  and  to  Congress  alone,  to 
suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  but  it  can  only  be  done  in  case  of 
invasion  or  rebellion,  and  then  only  when  the  public  safety  requires  it ; 
and  in  the  opinion  of  the  best  jurists  of  the  land,  and  indeed  of  every 
one  previous  to  these  times,  Congress  could  only  suspend  this  writ  in 
places  actually  in  rebellion  or  actually  invaded.  That  is  the  Constitu- 
tion. (Cheers.)  And  whenever  this  question  shall  be  tried  before  a 
court  in  the  State  of  New  York,  or  Ohio,  or  Wisconsin,  or  anywhere 
else,  before  honest  and  fearless  judges  worthy  of  the  place  they  occu- 
py, the  decision  will  be  that  it  is  unconstitutional.  (Loud  applause.) 
Assuming  what  is  not  implied  and  never  was  in  the  suspension  of  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus,  that  it  gives  power  of  arbitrary  arrest,  they  have 
affected  to  make  provision  for  the  exercise  of  such  power.  But  the 
President  has  no  more  authority  when  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  is 
suspended,  to  lay  his  hand  upon  the  citizen,  than  he  has  before,  or 
than  I  have ;  and  the  suspension  of  that  writ  takes  away  no  other  civil 
rights,  and  no  other  legal  remedy :  but  the  same  right  of  resistance  that  the 
common  law  gives  against  every  trespasser  acting  without  authority  of 
law,  and  attempting  to  enter  a  man's  house,  which  is  his  castle,  applies 
equally  whether  the  writ  be  suspended  or  not.  (Great  applause.) 
And  the  same  right  of  redress  in  courts  of  justice,  in  an  action  for 
damages,  remains  also.  That  writ  may  not  be  issued  by  the  court,  but 
every  other  right  still  continues  in  force  for  the  benefit  of  him  who 
may  be  made  the  victim  of  the  arrest.  Now,  sir,  there  being  no  more 
right  of  arrest,  notwithstanding  this  pretended  power  of  suspension, 
no  more  necessity  for  arrest  in  the  States  still  adhering  to  the  Union, 
than  there  was  before ;  I  repeat  the  assertion  that  whenever  an  effort 
is  made  to  exercise  arbitrary,  unconstitutional,  and  unwarrantable 
power,  any  honest  court  of  justice  will  decide  it  to  be  unconstitutional. 
(Applause.)  But  provision  is  made  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  State  and  the  Secretary  of  War  who  are 
the  officers  enumerated  in  the  act,  will  send  forth  their  m.inions  and 
lay  hands  upon  the  freemen  of  this  country.  And  it  is  provided  in 
that  act,  that  if  any  man  has  been  arrested  by  a  warrant  issued  from 
the  President  or  either  of  these  secretaries,  and  the  writ  returned  that 
he  is  held  by  virtue  of  that  authority,  he  shall  remain  imprisoned  until 
the  next  United  States  District  or  Circuit  Court  shall  sit ;  and  that  then, 


488  vallandigham's  speeches. 

if  the  Grand  Jury  do  not  find  a  bill  of  indictment  against  him,  he 
shall  be — what?  Discharged? — yes,  discharged.  IIow  ?  Remember 
that  a  Grand  Jury  of  fifteen  men  sworn  to  do  their  duty  are  to  make 
inquisitidn  into  the  otience  and  examine  the  case  with  the  witnesses 
called  only  on  the  part  of  the  United  States — and  there  are  wretches 
enough  to  be  found  everywhere  ready  to  commit  perjury  under  such 
circumstances — vet  if  that  Grand  Jurv  shall  find  nothino-  against  the 
man,  he  is  not  allowed,  as  the  apostle  Paul  was,  to  appeal  unto  Caesar. 
Oh,  no.  Our  Cjcsars  are  the  people,  and  to  them  the  appeal  will  be  made 
finally.  But  it  is  furtlier  provided  that  this  citizen,  whose  innocence 
has  been  absolutely  established  by  virtue  of  his  discharge  by  the  Grand 
Jury,  shall  not  be  permitted  to  go  out  of  that  dungeon  until  he  has 
taken  an  unconstitutional  and  most  execrable  oath — the  identical  oath 
that  was  tendered  to  other  men  who  have  been  imprisoned  by  arbitrary 
power  within  your  limits  and  elsewhere.  An  oath  to  support  the 
Constitution  ?  No.  That  would  be  tolerable  in  itself,  though  even 
that,  intolerable  under  the  circumstances,  for  no  man  ought  to  be 
obliged  to  take  any  oath  unless  there  is  some  occasion  for  it  in  a  judi- 
cial investigation,  or  when  he  takes  upon  himself  the  duties  of  an 
office.  The  man  who  is  born  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  is  assumed, 
and  has  been  from  the  beo-inninfj  of  this  rjovernment,  to  be  under  a 
perpetual  oath,  and  the  Democrats  of  the  country  have  always  kept 
that  oath.  (Cheers.)  The  foreigner  who  seeks  citizenship  takes  an 
express  oath  to  support  the  Constitulion  of  the  United  States.  The 
man  born  under  the  tyranny  of  Austria  or  Russia— these  used  to  be 
tyrannies  before  we  had  one  of  our  own — (Laughter) — that  man  born 
thus,  with  all  his  ideas  formed  upon  the  model  of  such  governments, 
comes  here ;  and  yet  it  never  entered  into  the  heads  of  our  fathers 
from  the  beginning  down  to  the  present  day,  to  require  of  him,  through 
the  naturalization  laws,  the  taking  of  any  other  oath  than  to  withdraw 
his  allegiance  to  any  foreign  potentate  and  support  the  Constitution, 
But  our  own  native  born  citizens,  and  foreigners  who  have  become 
citizens,  who  have  taken  that  oath,  are  required,  notwithstanding  their 
innocence,  to  take  this  other  oath — and  though  the  informers,  despica- 
ble as  the  vermin  are,  have  failed  to  invent  or  devise  any  accusation 
•whereby  he  can  be  held,  he  is  required  to  take  it,  and  if  he  refuse,  he 
is  then  to  remain  imprisoned  during  the  pleasure  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  These  are  our  liberties,  forsooth  !  Was  it  this 
which  you  were  promised,  in  1860,  in  that  grand  "Wide  Awake" 
campaign,  when  banners  were  borne  through  your  streets  inscribed 
"  Free  speech,  free  press,  and  free  men  ?"  And  all  this  has  been  accom- 
olished,  so  far  as  the  forms  of  the  law  go,  by  the  Congress  which  has  just 
expired.     Now,  I  repeat  again,  that  if  there  is  any  thing  wanting  to  make 


-        ^ 


PEACE LIBERTY THE    CO]!^STITIJTION.  489 

up  a  complete  and  absolute  despotism,  as  iron  and  inexorable  in  its  charac- 
ter as  the  worst  despotisms  of  the  old  world,  or  the  most  detestable  of 
modern  times,  even  to  Bomba's  of  Naples,  I  am  unable  to  comprehend 
what  it  is. 

All  this,  gentlemen,  infamous  and  execrable  as.it  is,  is  enough  to 
make  the  blood  of  the  coldest  man  who  has  one  single  appreciation  in 
his  heart  of  freedom,  to  boil  with  indignation.  (Loud  applause.) 
Still,  so  long  as  they  leave  to  us  free  assemblages,  free  discussion,  and  a 
free  b:>!lot,  I  do  not  want  to  see,  and  will  not  encourage  or  countenance, 
any  other  mode  of  ridding  ourselves  of  it.  ("That's  it,"  and  cheers.) 
We  are  ready  to  try  these  questions  in  that  way ;  but  I  have  only  to 
repeat  what  I  said  a  little  while  ago,  that  when  the  attempt  is  made  to 
take  away  those  other  rights,  and  the  only  instrumentalities  peaceably 
of  reforming  and  correcting  abuses  — free  assemblages,  free  speech,  free 
ballot,  and  free  elections — then  the  hour  will  have  arrived  when  it 

WILL  BE  the    duty    OF    FREEMEN    TO    FIND    SOME    OTHER  AND   EFFICIENT 

MODE  OF  DEFENDING  THEIR  LIBERTIES.  (Loud  and  protracted  cheering, 
the  whole  audience  rising  to  their  feet.)  Our  fathers  did  not  inaugu- 
rate the  Revolution  of  1776,  they  did  not  endure  the  sufferings  and 
privations  of  a  seven  years'  war  to  escape  from  the  mild  and  moderate 
control  of  a  constitutional  monarchy  like  tliat  of  England,  to  be  at  last, 
in  the  third  generation,  subjected  to  a  tyranny  equal  to  that  of  any 
upon  the  face  of  the  globe.     (Loud  applause.) 

But,  sir,  I  repeat  that  it  will  not,  in  my  judgment,  come  to  this.  I 
do  not  believe  that  this  Administration  will  undertake  to  deprive  us  of 
that  right.  I  do  not  think  it  will  venture,  for  one  moment,  to  attempt 
to  prevent,  under  any  pretext  whatever,  the  assembling  together  of  the 
people  for  the  fair  discussion  of  their  measures  and  policy.  1  do  not 
believe  it,  because  it  seems  to  me  with  all  the  folly  and  madness  which 
have  been  manifested  in  those  high  places,  they  must  foresee  what  will 
inevitably  follow.  Believing  this,  and  believing  that  the  best  way  of 
averting  the  crisis  is  to  demand  inexorably  and  resolutely,  with  the 
firmness  and  dignity  of  freemen,  these  rights,  and  let  them  know  dis- 
tinctly that  we  do  not  mean  to  surrender  them,  I  am  here  to-night  to 
speak  it  just  as  I  have  spoken.  (Applause.)  There  is  nothing  that  will 
encourage  or  induce  this  Administration,  for  one  moment,  to  attempt 
any  such  exercise  of  despotic  power,  reaching  to  assemblages  of  the 
people  and  to  elections,  except  the  evidences  which  they  are  now  seek- 
ing for — feeling  the  public  pulse — that  the  people  are  terrified  and 
ready  to  surrender  their  rights.  There  never  was  a  tyrant  that  dared 
to  go  one  step,  if  he  were  a  wise  tyrant,  till  he  saw  his  people  were 
ready  to  submit.  It  is  my  duty,  therefore,  as  a  freeman  in  the  exercise 
of  these  rights,  to  speak  thus  to  this  Administration  and  to  all  men  of 


490  yalla]st)igiiam'3  speeches. 

the  party  in  power.  I  do  not  speak  it  in  the  spirit  of  a  revolutionist; 
I  have  aheady  disclaimed  that.  I  desire  to  see  nothing  resembling  it 
inaugurated  in  this  country.  God  knows  I  have  read  too  ranch  in  his- 
tory,  of  the  horrors  of  revolutions  in  ages  past  and  in  other  countries, 
to  wish  one  single  moment  to  see  these  scenes  repeated  in  the  land 
which  gave  me  birth.  There  is  no  horror  that  can  enter  into  the  im- 
agination of  man,  none  that  has  ever  been  enacted  upon  this  globe 
since  it  first  came  from  the  hand  of  God,  equal  to  that  of  a  grand  con- 
vulsive social  revolution  among  such  a  people  as  we  are,  so  descended, 
of  such  tempers  and  such  wills,  and  inheriting  all  the  ferocity  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  I  do  not  desire  to  see  it,  but  I  will  never  consent 
to  be  made  a  slave.  (Loud  cheers.)  I  speak  it  advisedly.  Man  has 
but  one  life  to  give  up  here ;  and  that  life  is  but  of  little  value  as  com- 
pared with  the  liberties  which  we  would  be  called  upon  to  surrender, 
(Cheers.)  Other  men  have  given  up  their  lives  on  the  battle-field  or  the 
scaftbld,  for  the  sake  of  a  great  and  good  cause,  and  if  in  God's  provi- 
dence it  becomes  necessary  that  lives  should  be  offered  up  cheerfully  in 
this  country,  in  ihe  midst  of  the  terrific  ecenes  which  I  have  been  por- 
traying, then  I  trust  that  there  is  even  yet  enough  of  manhood — ay, 
enough  left  in  the  men  of  this  generation  to  vindicate  the  truth  recorded 
in  holy  writ,  that  God  created  man  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils, 
and  made  him  a  living  soul.     (Cheers.) 

I  have  spoken  now  of  what  this  Administration  and  what  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  have  done.  And  for  what  is  all  this  ?  What  is 
the  purpose  to  be  subserved  ?  For  the  permitted  exercise  of  such  tre- 
mendous power — for  the  surrender  of  every  liberty  by  a  people  bom 
free — there  ought  to  be  some  compensation  at  least.  The  maintenance 
of  the  Constitution,  if  the  Constitution  could  be  maintained  by  de- 
stroying it,  would  justify  that  surrender.  The  restoration  of  the  Union 
of  these  States,  if  it  could  be  restored  in  this  way,  would  not  only  jus- 
tify but  demand  it,  because  the  value  would  bear  some  proportion  to 
the  price  given.  In  the  beginning  you  were  told  that  the  purpose  of  all 
the  power,  previous  to  the  recent  legislation  of  Congress,  given  to  or 
usurped  by  the  Executive,  was  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  restoration  of  the  Union  ;  and  with  that  love  for  both,  which  is 
the  highest  honor  to  this  people  and  its  only  apology  (and  it  will  be  so 
recorded)  for  submitting  to  what  we  have  done,  the  people  made  sacri- 
fices, wave  money,  sent  forth  their  first-born  at  the  call  of  the  Execu- 
tive  as  no  other  people  ever  did  since  the  world  began.  There  never  was 
such  a  struggle  in  any  age  or  any  country.  Why  ?  Because  the  Presi- 
dent and  all  under  him  did  repeatedly  and  distinctly  declare  that  the 
Bole  purpose  was  to  uphold  the  Constitution  which  our  fathers  had 
made,  and  the  Union  which  that  Constitution  estabUshed,  and  to  which 


*•    -        -- 


PEACE LIBERTY THE    CONSTrrUTIOIf.  491' 

we  owed  all  our  greatness  and  prosperity.     The  people   of  America 
were  willing  to  sacrifice  all  these  for  that  gi:eat  good.     It  was  so  said 
in  the  President's  annual  message  of  the  4th  of  July,^a.s  it  had  been  in 
his  proclamation  of   the  loth  of  April,  calling  forth  the  militia,  in  the 
beginning.     It  was  in  the  orders  and  proclamations  of  every  Federal 
General  for  the  first  eight  or  ten  months  after  he  entered  the  Southern 
States.      The   day  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  by  a  vote  unanimous 
save  two,  Congress  declared  that  the  sole  purpose  of  the  war  sliould   be 
the  maintenance  of  the  Constitution,  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  and 
the  enforcement  of  the  laws;    and  when  these  objects  were  accomplish- 
ed, the  war  should   cease,  without  touching  the  domestic  institutions, 
slavery  included,  in  the  Southern  States.      That   pledge  was  given,  and 
under  it  an  army  of  six   hundred  thousand  men  was  at   6nce  raised ; 
and  it  was  repeated  in  every  form  till  towards  the  close  of  the  second 
session  of  Congress.     Then  the  Abolition  Senators  and  Representatives 
began  first  to  demand  a  change  in   the   policy  of  the  Administration, 
they  began  to  proclaim  that  the  war  must  be  no  longer  for  the  Union 
and  the  Constitution,  but  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Southern 
States.      Now,  sir,  I  repeat  it  and    defy  contradiction,  that  not  a  sol- 
dier enlisted,  out  of  the  first  nine  hundred  thousand,  for  any  other  pur- 
pose than   the   restoration  of  the  Union   and  the  maintenance  of  the 
Constitution.    There  was  not  one  single  officer,  so  far  as  his  public  dec- 
larations were  concerned,  whatever  may  have  been  the   secret  purposes 
of  his  heart,  that  did  not  openly  declare  that  the  moment  this  object 
was  changed  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  he  would  throw  up   his  com- 
mission and  resign.     Yes,  the  very  men  who,  for  the  last  four  or  five 
weeks  in  the  army — the  officers — I  do  not  mean  your  private  soldiers, 
they  who  do  picket  duty,  who  stand  in  the  front  ranks,  who  brave  the 
iron  hail  and  leaden  rain  of  the  stormy  battle-field,  the  men  who  sacri- 
fice their  lives  for  the  paltry  sum  of  thirteen  dollars  a  month,  the  noble, 
brave  men,  who,  if  they  were  at  home,  would  give   us  their  votes,  as 
their  sympathies  are  still  with  us ;  I  speak  of  your  officers  only — your 
majors,  your  lieutenant-colonels,  colonels,  brigadiers,  and   major-gene- 
rals, each  one  of  them  seeking  promotion,  and  drawing  his   salary  of 
two,  three,  four,  five,  six,  and  seven  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  whose 
interest  it  is  that  the  war  be  made   eternal.     They  are  the  men  who 
have  been  holding  these  meetingrs   of  regiments  so   called,  concocting 
resolutions,  or  rather  adopting  resolutions  concocted  in  Indianapolis, 
Columbus,  Springfield,  or  Washington,  and  sent  down  to  be  clothed  in 
form  as  an  expression  of  the  opinion  of  the  regiments,  but,  in  fact,  the 
expression  of  the  officers  alone.     They  are  the  men  who  have  solemnly 
declared,  at  home  and   in  the  army,  that  the  moment  this  became  an 
Abolition  war,  they  would  resign  and  come  back  to  us,  and  yet  they 


402  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

are  now  sending  out  these  missiles  to  us  their  peers — threatening  mes- 
sanrcs  that  th<;v  mean  Iso  come  back  and  "  whip"  the  Democratic 
traitors  and  secessionists  of  the  North. 

Now,  I  tell  these  shoulder-strapped  gentlemen  who  are  looking  to 
the  White  House  instead  of  at  the  enemy,  that  when  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  the  mission  for  which  they  were  sent  out;  when  upon  the 
battle-field  they  have  put  down  those  who  are  now  in  arms  against 
them,  it  will  be  time  enough  to  talk  about  coming  back.  But  if  they 
ima"-ine  for  one  moment  that  any  man  here  is  to  be  frightened  by  their 
insolent  messages,  they  know  not  the  spirit  of  the  freemen  who  remain 
at  home.  (Applause.)  We  have  three  or  five  to  their  one,  even  if 
they  had,  what  they  have  not,  the  soldiers  of  the  array  with  them. 
And  shall  officers  and  men  sent  down  South  to  the  battle-field  to  fight 
ajrainst  an  enemy  in  arms,  turn  their  backs  upon  that  enemy  and 
their  faces  upon  the  men  who  feed  them,  who  clothe  them,  and  who 
have  given  to  them  all  the  liberties  they  ever  had,  and  who,  in  spite  of 
them,  mean  to  maintain  those  liberties?  (Applause.)  Now,  sir,  I  care 
not  whether  they  are  major-generals,  brigadiers,  colonels,  or  what  not — 
thev  can  frio^hten  no  man  who  is  fit  to  be  a  freeman.  Do  we  not  under- 
stand  all  this?  Do  we  not  know  where  these  resolutions  were  written? 
Is  not  their  paternity  sufficiently  stamped  upon  their  very  visage?  The 
precious  Governor  of  Ohio,  forsooth,  and  of  Indiana,  and  Illinois, 
and  others  in  power  in  Washington,  prepared  all  these  and  sent  them 
down,  as  I  have  already  said,  for  the  purpose  of  being  brought  back 
with  the  notion  that  somebody  was  going  to  be,  not  "  hurt,"  but  terri- 
fied. Sir,  I  avail  myself  of  this  first  occasion,  to  give  notice,  so  far  as 
any  thing  I  inav  say  shall  ever  reach  them,  that  there  is  no  one  frighten- 
ed by  any  of  these  fnenaces,  and  that  when  they  return  home  after  this 
war  shall  have  been  ended,  to  take  their  places  as  citizens  among  us, 
there  is  not  a  single  household  in  the  Democratic  party,  there  is  not  a 
man  in  the  humblest  cottage  or  cabin  of  any  free  American,  who  will 
not  have  those  letters  and  resolutions  of  tlieirs,  pasted  upon  the  wall,  to 
rise  up  in  judgment  against  them  forever.  (Cheers.)  They  may  get 
promotion  just  now,  from  the  man  in  the  White  House — but  they  will 
learn  that  final  promotion  coraeth  iiot  from  that  quarter,  bat  at  the 
hands  of  the  people.  They  have  their  mission  to  perform — a  very 
serious  and  a  very  tedious  one ;  it  was  to  have  been  accomplished  in 
twenty  days,  sixty  days,  ninety  days,  but  it  is  not  done  yet.  Let  them 
go  forward  and  try  that  first.  We  have  our  mission  here ;  our  business 
is  to  fii'-ht  Abolition  rebels  in  our  midst.  (Loud  applause.)  We  have 
not  interfered  with  them  in  the  discharge  of  their  duty,  and  they  shall 
not  interfere  with  us.  They  are  under  military  law,  the  command  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States;   of  their  superiors;  we  arc  not. 


ii«i       If  iif  nr  -  -  "  -"—^^  -•   ■  •    --'--  ~  ■  ■■  ^ 


PEACE LIBEETY THE    CON"STITUTIO]Sr.  493 

(Cheers.)  We  are  the  masters  of  these  officials.  They  are  liable  to 
be  tried  at  drum-head  courts-martial,  according  to  military  law,  and 
punished  under  that  law.  We  are,  and  we  mean  to  be,  tried  only  by 
the  judicial  tribunals  in  our  midst.  (Applause.)  Let  them  look,  then, 
to  the  discipline  of  their  regiments,  brigades,  and  divisions;  let  them 
see  to  it  that  they  make  tliemselves  efficient  military  officers ;  but 
■while  they  are  at  a  distance,  without  tlie  means  of  conjmunicating 
■with  the  people  or  knowing  any  thing  about  political  questions,  let 
them  confine  themselves  to  their  legitimate  duties,  and  allow  us,  un- 
molested, to  attend  to  ours.  But  there  is  not  one  of  those  who  have 
participated  in  these  meetings,  ■who  did  not  declare  repeatedly  at 
home  and  in  the  army,  that  the  moment  this  was  proclaimed  to  be  a 
war  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  he  would  resign  his  commission ;  yet 
now,  because  we  would  oppose  this  war  for  abolition,  because  we 
would  maintain  ithe  position  that  we  have  held  from  the  beginning, 
they,  forsooth,  dare  to  taunt  us  with  treason,  and  to  impeach  our  fidel- 
ity to  our  country. 

Such,  then,  gentlemen,  was  the  purpose  originally  declared  of  this 
war.  Now,  what  is  it  to-day  ?  Let  any  man  honestly  and  conscien- 
tiously judge.  I  speak  not  as  a  mere  partisan ;  I  speak  what  will  be 
regarded  as  historic  truth.  Look  at  the  legislation  of  Congress,  your 
confiscation  bill,  your  emancipation  schemes,  the  proclamation  of  the 
22d  of  September,  reiterated  on  the  1st  of  January  last.  Look  at  the 
fact  that  to-day  the  entire  purpose  and  object  of  the  war,  as  proclaimed 
by  the  Executive  and  by  Congress  is  the  overthrow  of  slavery  in 
the  Southern  States.  Now,  is  it  not  so?  What  did  the  men  who 
were  accustomed  to  address  war  meetings  in  New  York  and  elsewhere 
say  ?  What  did  the  gentlemen  who  spoke  last  night  declare  ?  Months 
ago,  if  it  should  become  a  war  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  what  did 
they  declare  it  was  their  purpose  to  do  ?  Did  they  not  denounce  it  ? 
Did  they  not  denounce  it  even  during  the  last  canvass  in  the  State  of 
New  York  and  elsewhere  ?  We  did,  too.  We  abide  by  these  declara- 
tions to-day,  and  we  mean  to  make  them  good.  It  being  then  con- 
ceded that  this  is  the  purpose,  we  have  the  testimony  of  these  very 
men  themselves,  some  of  them  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  inany  of 
the  Republican  or  Abolition  party,  tha^  a  war  against  the  South,  a  war 
for  subjugation  and  to  abolish  slavery,  would  end  in  the  destruction  of 
the  Union  and  in  the  establishment  of  a  despotism  in  our  midst.  There 
is  not  a  man  among  them  that  is  not  on  the  record  in  that  declaration. 
Did  they  believe  it?  If  they  did  not,  I  did  ;  and  I  believe  it  to-night, 
and  am  with  every  man  who  does  believe  that  a  war  carried  on  upon 
this  basis  can  never  succeed  in  its  purpose — that  it  must  either  end  in 
disunion,  or  in  establishing  a  tyranny  at  home.     What  shall  we  do  ?     If 


494  vallats^digham's  speeches. 

there  be  any  man,  and  I  repeat  what  I  said  upon  another  occasion — if 
there  be  any  man  in  tlie  Democratic  or  Republican  party  who  still 
thinks  that  war  can  restore  the  Union  as  it  was  and  maintain  the  Con- 
stitution as  it  is,  I  have  no  quarrel  with  him  to-night.  I  assume  his 
position  for  the  sake  of  the  argument — it  is  not  mine,  and  never  was; 
but  let  it  be  so  for  a  moment.  You  say  that  a  war  prosecuted  for  this 
purpose  must  thus  result.  Have  you  the  power  to  change  the  pur- 
pose ?  Can  you  compel  Abraham  Lincoln  to  withdraw  his  procla- 
mation? Can  you  repeal  the  legislation  of  the  Congress  that  is  now 
defunct?  If  you  cannot,  the  war  must  go  on  upon  the  basis  on  which 
it  is  now  prosecuted — and  you  believe  that  it  will  end  in  death  to 
the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  to  Liberty. 

What  position,  then,  do  you  occupy  before  your  countrymen  in  still 
advocating  the  so-called  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war?  Vigor- 
ous prosecution  !  For  what  ?  By  your  own  declaration — disunion, 
separation,  destruction,  despotism.  Dare  any  man  stand  before  an 
assembly  of  freemen  and  advocate  the  objects,  or  the  results,  at  least, 
of  such  a  war  ?  And  yet,  what  inconsistency  for  any  one  claiming  in- 
telligence, to  declare  that  although  it  must  so  result,  and  although  he 
has  not  the  power  to  change  the  policy  of  the  Administration,  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  man  to  support  that  Administration  in  its  policy.  I 
deny  it  (cheers) ;  and  for  one,  at  least,  I  will  not  do  it.  If  I  had  be 
lieved  originally,  as  I  did  not  believe,  that  it  was  possible  to  restore 
this  Union  by  force,  if  I  had  occupied  the  position  of  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  Democrats,  as  well  as  the  great  mass  of  the  Republican 
party,  I  would  proclaim  to-night  that,  inasmuch  as  this  is  the  policy,  and 
we  have  not  the  power  to  change  it,  that  then  our  duty  would  be,  and  is, 
to  advocate  h(>nceforth  to  the  end,  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  Peace 
FOR  THE  Union.  (Loud  cheers.)  I  will  not  consent  to  put  the  entire 
purse  of  the  country  and  the  sword  of  the  country  into  the  hands  of  the 
Executive,  giving  him  despotic  and  dictatorial  power  to  carry  out  an 
object  which  I  avow  before  my  countrymen  is  the  destruction  of  their 
liberties,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Union  of  these  States.  I  do  not 
comprehend  the  honesty  of  such  declarations,  or  of  the  men  who  make 
them.  I  know  that  the  charge  is  brought  against  myself,  personally, 
and  against  many  of  us — (A, voice — "  Never  mind.")  I  have  not 
spent  a  moment  in  replying  to  it — the  people  will  take  care  of  all  that. 
(Applause.)  The  charge  has  been  made  against  us — all  who  are  op- 
posed to  the  policy  of  this  Administration  and  opposed  to  this  war — 
that  we  are  for  "  peace  on  any  terms."  It  is  false.  1  am  not,  but  I  am 
for  an  immediate  stopping  of  the  war  and  for  honorable  peace.  I  am 
for  peace  for  the  sake  of  the  Union  of  these  States.  More  than  that — 
I  am  for  peace,  and  would  be,  even  if  the  Union  could  not  be  restored, 


PEACE LIBEKTT THE    CONSTITUTION.  495 

as  I  believe  it  can  be ;  because,  without  peace,  permitting  this  Admin- 
istration for  two  years  to  exercise  its  tremendous  powers,  the  war 
still  existing,  you  will  not  have  one  remnant  of  civil  liberty  left  among 
yourselves.  (Great  applause.)  The  exercise  of  these  tremendous 
powers,  the  apology  for  which  is  the  existence  of  this  war,  is  utterly 
incompatible  with  the  stability  of  the  Constitution  and  of  constitutional 
liberty.  (Cheers.)  I  am  not  for  "peace  on  any  terms  ;"  T  would  not 
be  with  any  country  on  the  globe.  Honor  is  also  the  life  of  the  na- 
tion, and  it  is  never  to  be  sacrificed.  I  have  as  high  and  proud  a 
sense  of  honor,  and  have  a  right  to  have  it,  as  any  man  in  the  South, 
and  I  love  my  country  too  well,  and  cherish  its  honor  too  profoundly, 
for  one  single  moment  to  consent  to  a  dishonorable  peace.  (A  voice — 
"The  whole  country.")  Yes,  the  whole  country;  every  State  ;  and  I, 
unlike  some  of  my  own  party,  and  unlike  thousands  of  the  Abolition 
party,  believe  still,  before  God,  that  the  Union  can  be  reconstructed 
and  will  be.  (Great  applause.)  That  is  my  faith,  and  I  mean  to  cling 
to  it  as  the  wrecked  mariner  clings  to  the  last  plank  amid  the  ship- 
wreck. Bat  when  I  see  that  the  experiment  of  blood  has  failed  from 
the  begiiming,  as  I  believed  it  would  fail,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who 
proclaim  now  that  we  shall  have  separation  and  disunion.  I  am  for 
going  back  to  the  instrumentality  through  which  this  union  was  first 
made,  and  by  which  alone  it  can  be  restored.  (Cheers.)  I  am  for 
peace,  because  it  is  the  first  step  toward  conciliation  and  compromise. 
You  cannot  move  until  you  have  first  taken  that  indispensable  prelimi- 
nary— a  cessation  of  hostilities.  But  it  is  said  that  the  South  has  refused 
to  accept  or  listen  to  any  terras  whatever.  How  do  you  know  that? 
Has  it  been  tried  ?  Now,  gentlemen,  I  know  very  well  what  the 
papers  in  support  of  the  administration  at  Richmond  say.  I  know 
what  men  in  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  at  Richmond 
declare  upon  this  subject ;  I  have  read  it  all.  We  are  indebted  to' the 
Abolition  papers  for  the  republication  of  all  that.  But  I  do  hope  that 
no  man  who  has  ever  known  me  in  person  or  by  speech,  supposed  for 
one  moment,  that  I  expected  that  the  children  of  that  revolution,  the 
men  who  sprang  from  it,  the  men  who  are  dependent  upon  it,  or  even 
the  men  holding  power  now  under  it  would,  while  this  war  lasted, 
listen  to  any  terms  of  settlement.  I  would  as  soon  expect  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  his  cabinet  to  propose  such  terms  on  the  basis  of  the 
Union  of  fifty  years  ago,  as  Jefferson  Davis  or  any  man  in  Richmond. 
Now,  I  am  not,  perhaps,  the  most  sensitive  man  in  the  world,  and  yet 
I  have  a  reasonable  degree  of  sensitiveness,  and  I  hope,  some  common 
sense  with  it — but  I  do  not  feel,  as  I  am  afraid  some  of  our  friends  do 
feel,  personally  slighted,  because,  while  I  have  advocated  a  peaceable 
settlement   of  our   diflSculties — conciliation  and  compromise   for   the 


49 G  vallandigham's  speeches. 

restoration  of  the  Union  of  these  States — I  have  met  with  opposition 
and  with  hostility  from  the  papers  in  Richmond.  I  did  not  look  for 
it,  gentlemen,  although  I  have  a  better  right  to  it  than  some  of  your 
friends  hero  (A  voice — "  Van  Bnrcn  ")  from  my  former  relation  to  the 
Democratic  party  of  the  South,  when  they  were  acknowledging  obedi- 
ence to  the  Constitution,  and  were  still  in  the  Union;  but  I  did  not 
expect  that  Jefferson  Davis,  and  Benjamin,  and  Hunter,  or  any  of 
them  would,  when  I  opened  my  arms  and  said — "  Return,  prodigal 
sons,"  rush  with  tears  to  my  embrace, — and  I  do  not  feel  hurt.  I  am 
not  the  least  "  miffed  "  by  it ;  and  I  certainly  shall  not  therefore  ad- 
vocate a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  to  punish  them.  I  am 
afraid  some  gentlemen  imagined,  when  they  gave  out  this  invita- 
tion, that  it  would  be,  of  course,  accepted  at  once ;  although  one  of 
those  who  first  proclaimed  it,  had  even  less  power  than  I  have, 
certaiiilv  not  "more — and  was  very  much  in  the  condition  of  that 
distinguished  personage  who,  from  the  top  of  a  certain  high  moun- 
tain, promised  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  I  do  not  think  that 
he  or  I,  or  any  other  man  while  this  administration  is  in  place,  has 
the  power  to  conciliate  and  compromise  now.  Take  the  theory 
for  what  it  is  worth,  and  let  men  of  intelligence  judge;  let  history 
attest  it  hereafter.  My  theory  upon  that  subject,  then,  is  this — stop 
this  war.     (Cheers). 

Let  parties  in  the  South  be  organized,  as  parties  never  will  be  while 
the  war  lasts,  upon  some  other  question  than  repelling  invasion.  Let 
opposition  parties  spring  up  there,  restore  all  the  ordinary  instrument- 
alities, and,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  allow  all  the  great  and  powerful 
natural  causes  which  impel  us  to  reunion,  to  operate  and  have  their  full 
efiect,  and  then,  through  the  ballot-box  in  the  South,  men  will  be  put 
in  power,  elected  presidents,  constituted  cabinets,  and  chosen  senators 
and'  representatives  (because  the  people  will  it  so),  who  will  agree  to 
terms  of  settlement  and  compromise  with  the  men  whom  the  people  of 
the  North  and  the  West  will  by  that  time  have  also  made  presidents, 
cabinet  ministers,  senators,  and  representatives.  (Cheers.)  I  no 
more  expect  the  Richmond  Enquirer  to  accept  these  propositions,  least 
of  all,  now  to  advocate  reunion,  than  I  do  the  Chronicle  or  Republican^ 
or  the  Phdad<;lphia  Press,  or  the  Times  in  this  city,  or  the  Evening 
Post.  But  there  is  a  people  in  the  South  just  like  us,  as  intelligent, 
as  brave,  as  well-informed,  as  acute  in  discerning  their  own  interests 
and  obedient  to  their  own  duties  as  any  people ;  and  when  they  see 
that  duty  and  interest  both  combine  to  demand  the  reconstruction  of 
the  Union  of  these  States,  they  will  do  then  as  their  fathers  and  our 
fathers  did  in  1787.  The  old  Confederation  had  perished.  When  the 
Union  they  established  was  gone,  and  the  States  were  resolved  again 


--*^-'""-  ^  r  ■  - 


PEACE LIBERTY THE    CONSTITUTIO]!T.  497 

into  their  original  and  sole  sovereignty,  they  came  together,  every  State, 
in  a  convention  of  Slates  in  Philadelphia,  and  with  Washington  as  pre- 
siding   offii.-er,    and    wilh    hiin    Ilaiiiilton,    Jay,    Sliermm,    Ellsworth, 
Pincknev,  and  Madison — not  at  the   mouth   of  the  cannon,  not  with 
the  edge  of  the  sword,  not  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  but  in  council, 
and  in  the  spirit  of  conciliation   and   compromise,  they  made  a  new 
union.     (Cheers.)      That    Union    endured    for    seventy-two    years,    in 
peace,  prosperity,  and  happiness,  until  its  foundations  were  first  sapped 
by  the  abolitionists.     Now,  sir,  what  was  done  then  can  be  done  again, 
and  will  be  dom^.     The  time  will  come,  by  and  by,  when  the  States  of 
the  South,  one  by  one  (because  the  people  composinof  those  States  re- 
solve upon  it),  sliall  come  together,  when  this  war  shall  have  terminated 
and   reason    resumed  its   sway,  and    we   have  the   power  to   put  down 
fanaticism   and   abolitionism ;  and  the  North  and  West  will  come  to- 
gether with  them  in  convention  to  restore  a  more  perfect  union.     The 
Union   of  1776,  the  Union  that  carried  us  through  the  revolutionary 
war,    was    dissolved,    and   yet    was    reconstructed.     Why?      Because 
interest,  duty,  patriotism,  desire  for  a  great  and  prosperous  country,  all 
these  contributed  to  the  result.     That  council  chamber  made  the  Union 
under  which  we  live.     The  States   through  their  Sovereignties  did  it, 
and  will  do  it  again.     We  hear  much  in  condemnation  of  the  doctrine 
of  State  Rights,  and  attempts   have   been  made  by  execrable  oaths  to 
overthrow   that   great  and   fundamental    doctrine   without   which   the 
liberties  of  this  people  cannot  endure  an  hour.     Mr.  Lincoln  undertook 
to  announce,  in  his  message  of  the  4th  of  July,  the  monstrous  absurdity 
that  the  Union  was  older  than  the  Constitution — that  is,  that  the  child 
was  older  than  the  parent.     But   I  affirm  that  it  was  the  State  Sov- 
ereignties which  met  in  convention  and  made  the  Federal  Government, 
and  I  have  here  an  extraordinary  proof  of  that  fact.     I  doubt  whether 
there  are  half  a  score  like  it  in  the  United  States  to-day.     It  is  especially 
pertinent  because   of  the  pending  election  in  that  State,  and  also  be- 
cause of  the  noble,  bold,  and  patriotic  stand  which  the  Democracy  of 
Connecticut  have  assumed.     Here,  sir,  is  a  piece  of  coin  from  the  mint 
of  the  Sovereign  State  of  Connecticut,  coined  by  her,  in  the  exercise  of 
her  high  power  of  sovereignty,  and  bearing  date  in  1787.     Yes,  the 
Confederation   was  dissolved,  and  that  State  went  back  again  to  its 
sole  sovereignty  and  coined   money.       I  believe  it  never   issued   any 
"greenbacks;"  they  are  a  later  invention.     But  here  is  the  evidence 
of  that  great  fJict,  which  designing  men,  consolidating  empire  here  at 
the  price  of  liberty,  are  desirous  continually  to  ignore.     It  is  a  copper 
coin,  with  a  copper  head  upon  it.     (Great  laughter,  and  cheers  for  the 
"Copperheads.")     It  is  the  head  of  Liberty.     (Renewed  applause.)     It 
bears  the  superscription  and  image  of  Freedom.     It  reads,  "By  the  au- 
32 


408  vallandigha:m's  speeches. 

thoritv   of   the    State    of   Connocticut,"      That    was    its  warrant  for 
circulation. 

Now,  sir,  I  have  already  explained  what  I  believe  solemnly  to  be  tlic 
only  peaceable  mode  by  which  t^ie  Union  of  these  States  can  be  re- 
stored. The  idea  of  accomplishing  it  by  force  does  seem  to  me,  with 
all  due  respect  to  the  twenty  odd  n)illions  of  people  wHo  once  thought 
otherwise,  the  most  extraordinary  absurdity  that  ever  entered  the  imagin- 
ation of  man.  (Applause.)  Despotic  governments  do  not  proclaim,  as 
'our  fathers  did  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  that  all  govern- 
ments derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  That 
■was  the  foundation  upon  which  this  great  superstructure  of  civil  liberty, 
this  mighty  fabric,  was  erected,  and  upon  that  it  prospered ;  and  now 
that  by  force,  by  coercion,  the  fraternity,  the  good  will,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  Union,  should  be  sought  to  be  perpetuated,  will  seem 
in  future  ages,  to  men  undisturbed  by  the  passions  and  prejudices  of 
the  day,  almost  incredible.  It  will  be  set  down  among  the  fabulous 
portions  of  history,  and  some  future  Herodotus  will  relate  it,  as  he 
does  all  his  other  fables,  with  the  preface,  "  They  say."  Russia  is  at  this 
moment  engaged  in  suppressing  an  insurrection  in  Poland,  and  it  is  a 
singular  coincidence  that  that  insurrection  among  a  people  trodden  un- 
der the  heul  of  despotism  for  seventy  years,  without  a  form  of  govern- 
ment, without  ballot,  without  free  speech,  without  a  free  press,  without 
the  liberty  to  assemble,  governed  by  satraps  and  deputies  appointed  by 
the  autocrat  of  Russia,  is  resistance  to  a  conscription  act.  But  they 
are  a  people  in  whose  ashes  seem  yet  to  slumber  the  fires  of  liberty  that 
once  burned  bright  in  the  heart  of  every  Polander.  (Three  cheers  for 
the  Poles.)  Xow,  upon  the  theory  of  the  Russian  Empire,  the  autocrat 
of  Russia  has  a  right  and  is  perfectly  consistent  in  sending  his  armies 
to  suppress  that  rebellion ;  but  to  expect  to  accomplish  such  a  result  in 
this  country  seems,  as  I  have  said,  an  absurdity  beyond  conception. 
But  I  do  understand  the  theory  of  our  government.  I  do  believe  that 
all  governments  derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, and  I  know  that  that  consent  can  be  brought  about  only  by  the 
application  of  reason,  or  by  appeals  to  the  better  passions  of  men.  I 
would  resort  now  to  these  appeals,  I  desire  to  reason  this  case  with 
the  men  of  the  South,  when  we  have  got  through  reasoning  it  with  the 
men  of  the  North  and  West.  When  we  have  accomplished  that  work, 
and  re-established  all  our  own  liberties,  freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press, 
and  of  elections  here,  then  I  desire  that  an  appeal  shall  be  made  to  the 
South,  and  that  by  their  consent  now,  as  in  lYSV,  the  Union  shall  be 
restored,  I  have  that  faith  in  their  intelligence,  their  patriotism,  their 
wisdom  and  their  statesmanship,  to  believe  that  this  result  will  be  ac- 
complished ;  and  I  feel  confident  that  either  the  men  now  in  power 


PEACE LIBEETY THE    CONSTITUTION.  499 

there  will  be  obliged  to  yield  to  the  popular  demand,  or  failing  to 
yield,  will  be  compelled  to  do  what  we  propose  to  compel  Lincoln  and 
his  party  to  do  on  the  4th  of  March,  1865 — to  give  place  to  other 
men.  (Cheers.)  Without  entering  into  detail,  these  are  my  reasons 
for  the  faith  that  is  in  me,  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  Union  of  these 
States ;  and  my  conviction  is  as  earnest  as  ever  penetrated  the  heart  of 
man.     I  believe  it.     I  speak  it  thus,  because  I  believe  it. 

But  to  return  :  upon  the  other  theory  that  the  war  is  prosecuted, 
inexorably  and  unchangeably,  as  a  war  of  aggression — a  war  to  abolish 
slavery — a  war  to  set  free  four  millions  of  negroes — I  ask  whether  or 
not  it  is  our  duty,  nay,  have  we  a  right  to  lend  to  it  our  support  in  the 
way  of  "  vigorous  prosecution."  The  President  has  no  right  to  call 
upon  us ;  we  are  under  no  obligation  to  respond  beyond  the  limits  of 
a  law  constitutionally  enacted.  (Applause.)  We  have  a  right  to  de- 
termine this  question,  to  argue  it  in  court  and  before  the  people,  aa 
well  as  every  other  question.  Sir,  the  Democratic  party  carried  on  the 
war  of  1812,  and  never  dreamed  of  forbidding  discussion  as  to  its 
policy.  The  Democratic  party  afterward  waged  the  war  against  Mexico, 
and  never  thought  of  arresting  any  man — never  attempted  to  suppress 
freedom  of  speech  or  of  the  press — never  locked  men  in  bastiles — 
never  prohibited  the  circulation  of  a  single  newspaper  'through  the 
mails.  (Loud  cheers.)  This  was  reserved  to  the  party  of  Abolition, 
to  the  party  in  power,  that  undertakes  to  suppress  all  these  agencies 
of  popular  rights  and  freedom. 

Now,  what  a  spectacle  has  this  Congress  presented !  We  went  be- 
fore the  people  nt  the  October  and  November  elections,  and  so  far  as 
was  possible  through  the  press,  trammelled  as  it  was,  and  of  speech, 
trodden  down  as  it  was,  made  our  appeal.  The  people  heard  it,  and 
answered.  They  rendered  judgment  of  condemnation  against  the  Ad- 
ministration, and  yet  after  having  chosen  four  Senators — as  many  as 
the  elections  that  had  taken  place  permitted  us ;  having  changed  the 
political  complexion  of  the  House  of  Representatives  ;  having  converted 
that  body  into  a  vast  charnel  house,  a  political  sepulchre  ;  the  men 
who  had  been  beaten  at  home  spent  the  last  expiring  hours  of  that  in- 
famous Congress  in  attempting  to  perpetuate  their  power  by  force. 
By  legislation  seeking  to  reverse  the  judgment  of  the  people,  thev 
placed  themselves  in  a  condition  to  maintain  their  power  after  its  con- 
stitutional limitation  should  have  expired,  or  to  control  the  elections. 
That  can  be  but  the  purpose  of  all  this.  Why  should  the  habeas 
corpus  be  suspended  in  the  adhering  States  of  this  Union  ?  Why  shall 
the  President  undertake  for  one  single  moment  to  arrest  a  citizen  for  the 
expression  of  his  opinions,  or  for  the  assembling  together,  as  we  have 
done  to-night,  to  discuss  his  policy  ?     What  is  the  purpose  of  all  this  ? 


500  tallaxdigham's  speeches. 

To  suppress  the  rebellion  in  the  South  ?  They  do  not  arrest  anybody- 
there.  It  is  precisely  the  same  weak  and  execrable  policy  that  was 
exhibited  in  the  proclamation  of  freedom  to  all  the  slaves  inside  the 
Confederate  lines,  with  an  exemption  of  slaves  within  our  military 
lines,  where  alone  the  President  has  the  power  to  set  them  free. 
(Applause.) 

Instead  of  arrestino:  traitors  who  are  within  the  limits  of  the  Con- 
federate  States,  he  proposes  to  arrest  men  in   the   North  and  West, 
whose  only  crime  is,  that  they  choose,  in  the  exercise  of  their  rights  as 
freemen,  to  condemn  his  policy  ;  who  demand,  through  the  ballot-box, 
that  another  party  and  other  men,  representing  other  principles  and 
another  policy,  shall  be  put  in  power.     (Cheers).     It  cannot  be  done 
in  the   United   States  yet.     We  have   borne  enough,  but   we   cannot 
endure   every  thing.     There  is  a  limit  where  patience  ceases   to  be  a 
virtue.     It  has  not  come   yet — I  think  it   will  not  come.     I  know  it 
will  not,  if  a  spirit  of  freedom  is  exhibited  by  those  who  have  descended 
from  the  ancestors  who  gave  us  our  liberties  in  this,  and  in  our  mother 
country.     I  know  well,  indeed,  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  period 
of  profound  darkness,  that  clouds  lower  heavily  in  the  horizon  above 
us — another  of  those  fluctuating  crises  which  mark  every  revolution,  is 
at  this  moment  upon  us.      He  is  blind,  indeed,  who  does  not  see ;  deaf, 
indeed,  who  does  not  hear  the  mutterings  of  the  storm.     At  this  mo- 
ment the  whole  power  of  the  Administration,  all  its  agencies,  secret 
and  public,  are  being  employed  to  ascertain  whether  this  people  is 
servile  enough  to  submit  to  the  loss  of  their  liberties  ;  and  then,  with 
a  cowardice  which  marks  all  tyrants,  if  it  be  found,  by  the  shrinking 
away  of  the  people  and  their  cowering  before  threats,  the  threats  will  be 
executed.     Yes,  of  that  let  there  be  no  doubt.     But  if , the  report  from 
the  spies  and  informers  who  infest  all  your  places,  public  and  private, 
by  order  of  this  Administration,  be  received  at  the  centre  of  power  in 
Washington,  that  this  people  still  love  their  liberties,  and  are  resolved, 
at  every  hazard,  to  maintain  them,  then  the  Administration  will  yield 
before  that  popular  resolve.     (Cheers).     You  will  then  escape,  because, 
unwise  as  the  men  in  power  have  proved  themselves,  by  the  sad  expe- 
rience of  the  past,  destitute,  as  they  are,  of  the  first  principles  of  true 
statesmanship,  without   one  spark  of  that  love  of  liberty  which  ought 
to  animate  the  breast   of  every  American   citizen  ;  still,  I  repeat,  they 
are  not  stolid  enough  to  mistake  these  signs,  which  indicate  the  gather- 
ing wrath  of  an   outraged    and   oppressed   people.     Let  the    men  in 
power  beware — and  I  would  warn  them,  though  I  well  know  who  will 
conquer  if  such  a  strusrcrle  shall  come — althoujjh  I  know  it  is  not  vour 
head  or  mine  that  would  bo   str'cken  off  upon  the  block — still,  I  know 
too  well  the  calamities  which  ;irist  be  inflicted  upon  this,  the  country 


PEACE LIBERTY THE   CONSTITUTION.  501 

of  my  birth,  to  desire  to  witness  scenes  like  these  in  our  midst.  Let 
me,  then,  as  a  patriot,  pretending  no  love  to  this  Administration,  feeling 
all  the  natural  promptings  of  the  human  heart  to  avenge  wrongs  which 
I,  as  well  as  others,  have  endured,  and  which  burn  deep  within  this 
bosom — ay,  wrongs  inflicted,  or  threatened  to  be  inflicted,  and  causing 
many  a  sleepless  night  and  many  an  anxious  hour  to  myself  and  the 
family  of  uiy  household — with  all  that,  still  let  me,  in  the  spirit  of  a 
patriot,  appeal  to  this  Administration,  and  with  a  voice  of  warning, 
prophetic  it  may  be — I  trust  not,  because  I  trust  the  warning  will  bo 
heeded — let  me  say  to  them  :  Learn  a  parable  from  the  fig-tree — 
"  When  ye  see  the  fig-tree  putting  forth  his  leaves,  ye  know  that  the 
summer  is  nigh."  It  is  not  summer  ;  it  is  winter — "  the  winter  of  our 
discontent."  Let  them  be  warned  in  time,  and  make  no  issue  with  the 
people,  while  exercising  their  constitutional  power,  which  they  have  a 
right  to  do,  and  carrying  out  the  laws  enacted  according  to  the  Consti- 
tution, by  President  and  Cabinet  ministers  to  the  4th  of  March,  1865  ; 
by  representatives  the  same ;  by  senators  till  their  terms  respectively 
shall  have  expired.  Let  all  who  are  under  this  Administration  in  peace 
and  quiet  hold  their  ofiices ;  let  their  persons  be  undisturbed,  violated 
by  no  mob,  punished  by  no  exercise  of  arbitrary  power.  Let  them 
fret  still  their  brief  hour  on  this  great  stage  upon  which  the  most  won- 
drous drama  of  the  world's  history  is  now  being  enacted.  In  patience 
let  them  wait  the  expiration  of  their  term  of  power ;  but  meantime,  as 
they  value  peace  in  this  land,  as  they  would  avert  a  revolution  in  our 
midst ;  as  they  would  see  the  Constitution  maintained,  the  laws  exe- 
cuted, social  convulsions  turned  aside,  let  them  see  to  it  that  the  people 
enjoy  every  jot  and  tittle  of  their  rights  through  that  Constitution  and 
under  the  laws,  and  peimit  the  several  States,  unobstructed,  to  exercise 
their  judgment  at  the  ballot-box,  and  determine  whether  their  party 
shall  remain  in  power,  or  whether  another  party  holding  other  prin- 
ciples, pursuing,  or  proposing  to  pursue,  another  policy,  shall  reign  in 
their  stead.  I  make  no  threats — no  wise  man  ever  did.  (Cheers.)  I 
never  yield  to  threats — therefore,  I  expect  no  one  else  to  yield ;  but, 
in  the  spirit  of  warning,  as  one  who  would  avert  the  struggle  which 
this  people  will  make  to  maintain  their  liberties,  I  have  spoken ;  and  I 
would  that  my  voice  could  penetrate  that  most  impenetrable  of  all  re- 
cesses, the  precincts  of  the  White  House,  and  that  the  men  who  are 
surrounded  there  by  the  parasites  of  power — the  flatterers  who  are  the 
vermin  of  courts,  with  that  legion  of  contractors  and  placemen  who 
speak  not  the  truth,  and  represent  not  the  people — that  a  voice  from 
the  people  could  reach  their  ears,  and  that  the  voice  being  heard  might 
be  heeded.  Then  shall  we  escape  the  convulsions  which  have  visited 
other  countries.     The  scenes  of  revolutions  in  former  times  will  not  bo 


502  vallandigham's  speeches. 

re-enacted  in  our  midst ;  but  peaceably  and  quietly,  under  the  Consti- 
tution, and  in  accordance  with  law,  the  changes  of  administration  suc- 
cessively, year  after  year,  will  go  on  in  this  country,  which,  before  God, 
I  believe,  and  it  is  the  faith  and  hope  of  my  heart,  is  destined  yet  once 
again,  in  peace,  happiness,  and  prosperity,  to  realize  that  most  splendid 
of  visions  that  ever  fell  upon  human  eyes — one  Union,  one  Constitu- 
tion, one  Destiny. 

Note. — The  following  card  from  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  called  out  by  a  mis- 
report  of  the  foregoing  speech,  in  the  New-York  Tiinea : 

New  York,  March  8,  1863. 
To  tJie  Editor  of  i?ie  New  York  Times :  , 

Allow  me  to  say,  that  the  statement  of  your  reporter  that  I  denied  that  -we  owed 
any  obedience  to  the  Conscription  Act,  and  your  own  that  I  counselled  resistance 
to  it  by  the  people  of  the  North,  are  both  incorrect.  On  the  contrary,  I  expressly 
counselled  the  trial  of  all  questions  of  law  before  our  judicial  courts,  and  all  ques- 
tions of  politics  before  the  tribunal  of  the  ballot-box.  I  am  for  obedience  to  all 
laws — obedience  by  the  people  and  by  men  in  power  also.  I  am  for  a  free  discus- 
sion of  all  questions  of  law  before  our  judicial  courts,  and  all  questions  of  politics 
before  the  tribunal  of  the  ballot-box.  I  am  for  a  free  discussion  of  all  measures 
and  laws  whatsoever  as  in  former  times  ;  but  forcible  resistance  to  none.  The  bal- 
lot-box, and  not  the  cartridge-box,  is  the  instrument  for  reform  and  revolution 
which  1  would  have  resorted  to.     Let  this  be  understood. 


REMARKS  ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  THE  PEOPLE  TO  KEEP  AND  BEAR  ARMS ; 

Made  at  a  Mass  Meeting  in  Hamilton,  Ohio,  March  21,  1863. 

I  WILL  not  speak  disrespectfully  of  Colonel  Carrington.  He  and  1 
served  pleasantly  together  in  the  militia  of  Ohio,  on  the  peace  establish- 
ment (laughter),  and  I  found  him  always  gentlemanly  in  his  deport- 
ment. I  am  glad  to  learn  that  he  is  still  so  regarded  at  Indianapolis. 
How  could  he  have  issued  such  an  order  ?  I  know  that  he  is  '*  great" 
on  general  orders ;  but  such  a  one  passes  my  comprehension.  I  am 
sure  he  cannot  want  to  do  wrong,  for  he  must  know,  that  two  years 
hence,  under  the  legislation  of  the  late  Congress,  a  Democratic  Presi- 
dent or  Secretary  of  War — and  who  knows  but  I  may  be  Secretary 
myself?  (laughter  and  cheers) — can  strike  his  name  from  the  roll  with- 
out even  a  why  or  wherefore.  It  w^ould  be  well  for  all  ambitious  mili- 
tary gentlemen  just  now  to  recollect  this  small  fact,  and  confine  them- 
selves strictly  to  their  legal  and  Constitutional  military  duties,  and  to 
allow  others  to  enjoy  their  opinions  and  civil  rights  unmolested.  But 
to  the  order.     Here  it  is  : 


sxaB^mm 


EIGHT   TO    KEEP    AND    BEAE    AEMS.  503 


Head-quarters,  United  States  Forces,  ) 
Ikdianapolis,  Ind.,  iforcA  17,  1863.       ) 

"  General  Order  No.  15. 

"  1.  The  habit  of  carrying  arms  upon  the  person  has  greatly  in- 
creased"— 

Well,  so  it  has,  and  in  times  of  threats  and  danger  like  these,  it 
ought  to,  and  in  spite  of  all  "  orders,"  it  will  increase — 

"And  is  prejudicial  to  peace  and  good  order" — 

Sir,  restore  to  us  peace  and  good  order,  and  we  will  lay  aside  all 
arms,  and  be  glad  of  the  chance — (Great  applause.) 

"  As  well  as  a  violation  of  civil  law" — 

I  deny  it;  but,  if  so,  who  gave  authority  to  this  gentleman  to  lecture 
on  civil  law  in  a  military  order? — 

"  Especially  at  this  time,  it  is  unnecessary,  impolitic,  and  danger- 
ous." 

Was  ever  the  like  heard  or  read  of  before  ?  "  At  this  time — "  at  a 
time  when  Democrats  are  threatened  with  violence  everywhere  ;  .when 
mobs  are  happening  every  day,  and  Democratic  presses  destroyed ; 
when  secret  societies  are  being  formed  all  over  the  country  to  stimulate 
to  violence  ;  when,  at  hotels  and  in  depots,  and  in  railroad  cars  and  on 
the  street  corners.  Democrats  are  scowled  at  and  menaced,  a  military 
order  coolly  announces  that  it  is  unnecessary,  impolitic,  and  dangerous 
to  carry  arms  !  And  who  signs  this  order  ?  "  Henry  B.  Carrington, 
Colonel  18th  XJ.  S.  Infantry,  Commanding'''' — 

Commanding  what?  The  18th  U.  S.  Infantry,  or  at  most  the 
United  States  forces  of  Indiana — but  not  the  people,  the  free  white 
American  citizens  of  American  descent,  not  in  the  military  service. 
That  is  the  extent  of  his  authority,  and  no  more.  And  now,  sir,  I 
hold  in  my  hand  a  general  order  also — an  order  binding  on  all  military 
men  and  all  civilians  alike — on  colonels  and  generals  and  commanders- 
in-chief — State  and  Federal.     (Applause.)     Hear  it : 

"  The  right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms  shall  not  he  infring- 
ed!''' By  order  of  the  States  and  people  of  the  United  States.  George 
Washington,  commanding.     (Great  cheering.) 

That,  sir,  is  General  Order  No.  1 — the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  (Loud  cheers.)  Who  now  is  to  be  obeyed — Carrington  or 
Washington? 

But  I  have  another  *'  order"  yet. 

•'The  people  have  a  right  to  bear  arms  for  their  defence  and  security, 
and  the  military  shall  be  in  strict  subordination  to  the  civil  power." 
(Renewed  cheering.) 


o 


04  VALLANDIGIIA^fs    SPEECHES. 


Tliat,  sir,  is  General  Order  No.  2 — the  Constitution  of  Ohio,  by  order 
of  the  people  of  Ohio.  Here,  sir,  are  our  warrants  for  keeping  and 
bearing  ann«,  and  by  the  blessing  of  God,  we  mean  to  do  it;  and  if 
the  men  in  power  undertake  in  an  evil  hour  to  demand  them  of  us,  we 
will  return  the  Spartan  answer,  "  Come  and  take  them," 

But  Colonel  Carrington's  order  proceeds  : 

"The  Major-General  commanding  the  Department  of  the  Ohio" — 

Commanding  whom,  again  I  ask  ?  Only  the  military  forces  of  the 
Department  of  Ohio,  but  not  a  single  citizen  in  it — 

"  Having  ordered  that  all  sales  of  arms,  powder,  lead,  and  percussion 
caps,  be  prohibited  until  further  orders" — 

Where,  sir,  is  the  law  for  all  that?  Are  we  a  conquered  province 
governed  by  a  military  proconsul  ?  And  so  then  it  has  come  to  this, 
that  the  Constitution  is  now  suspended  by  a  military  General  Order, 
No.  15  !  Sir,  the  Constitutional  right  to  keep  and  bear  arms,  carries 
with  it  the  right  to  buy  and  sell  arms;  and  fire-arms  are  useless  without 
powder,  kad,  and  percussion  caps.  It  is  our  right  to  have  them,  and 
we  mean  to  obey  General  Orders  Nos.  1  and  2,  instead  of  No.  15. 
(Loud  applause.) 

But  I  read  further — "  and  that  any  violation  of  said  order  will  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  confiscation  of  the  goods  sold,  and  the  seizure  of  the 
stock  of  the  vender." 

Is  the  man  deranged  ?  Confiscation,  indeed  !  Why,  sir,  the  men 
who  are  clothed  now  with  a  little  brief  authority,  seem  to  think  of 
nothing  except  taxation,  emancipation,  confiscation,  conscription,  and 
every  other  word  ending  in  t-i-o-n.  (Laughter.)  But  General  Order 
No.  1  says,  ''  No  man  shall  be  deprived  of  property  without  due  pro- 
cess of  law ;"  and  General  Order  No.  2  says,  "  Private  property  shall 
ever  bo  held  inviolate,  and  every  person,  for  an  injury  done  him  in  his 
land,  goods,  person,  or  reputation,  shall  have  remedy  by  due  course  of 
law."  And  though  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  may  be  suspended,  the 
writs  of  replevin  and  injunction  cannot  be.      (Cries  of  "  Good,  good.") 

But  Order  No.  15  proceeds  :  "  And  said  order  having  been  extend- 
ed by  the  Major-General,  to  cover  the  entire  department,  is  hereby 
promulged" — 

Yes,  promulged — "  for  immediate  observance  throughout  the  State." 

Can  military  insolence  go  further  ?  Is  this  the  way  the  military  is 
to  be  in  strict  subordination  to  the  civil  power  ?  And  does  the  colonel 
commanding  the  18th  U.  S.  Infantry  thus  undertake  to  "  promulge" 
a  general  order  suspending  or  abrogating  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  of  Indiana  ?     Are  we  living  in  America  or  Austria  ? 

And  now  the  fitting  commentary  on  all  this  attempt  to  disarm  the 
white  man,  while  public  arms  are  being  put  into  the  hands  of  the 


PEOTEST.  505 

negro,  is  the  allusion  in  the  second  section  of  this  General  Order  No. 
15,  to  the  recent  destruction  of  a  Democratic  printing-press,  hy  what 
the  colonel  commanding  the  18th  U.  S.  Infantry,  drawing  it  mild  after 
the  fashion  of  Sarey  Gamp,  calls  a  "  popular  demonstration  ;"  and  yet 
not  one  of  tlie  perpetrators  of  this  outrage,  although  soldiers,  and  un- 
der military  law,  has  been  punished,  nor  ever  will  be.  Yet  at  just 
such  a  time  of  lawless  violence,  it  is  proposed  that  the  people  shall  be 
disarmed.     Never.     (Loud  cheers.) 

Sir,  I  repeat  now  what  I  believe  to  be  the  true  programme  for  these 
times :  Try  every  question  of  law  in  your  Courts,  and  every  question 
of  politics  before  the  people,  and  through  the  ballot-box ;  maintain 
your  Constitutional  civil  rights,  at  all  hazards,  against  military  usurpa- 
tion. Let  there  be  no  resistance  to  law,  but  meet  and  repel  all  mobs 
and  mob  violence  by  force  and  arms  on  the  spot.  (Great  and  con- 
tinued cheering.) 


PROTEST  BEFORE  THE  MILITARY  COMMISSION 
At  Cincinnati,  May  7,  1863.* 

t 

Arrested  without  due  "  process  of  law,"  without  warrant  from  any 
judicial  officer,  and  now  in, a  military  prison,  T  have  been  served  with 
a  "  charge  and  specifications,"  as  in  a  Court-Martial  or  Military  Com- 
mission. 

I  am  not  in  either  "  the  land  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States, 
nor  in  the  militia  in  the  actual  service  of  the  United  States,"  and  there- 
fore am  not  triable  for  any  cause,  by  any  such  Court,  but  am  subject, 
by  the  express  terms  of  the  Constitution,  to  arrest  only  by  due  process 
of  law,  judicial  warrant,  regularly  issued  upon  afiidavit  and  by  some 
ofiicer  or  Court  of  competent  jurisdiction  for  the  trial  of  citizens,  and 
am  now  entitled  to  be  tried  on  an  indictment  or  presentment  of  a 
Grand  Jury  of  such  Court,  to  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an  impartial 
jury  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  to  be  confronted  with  witnesses  against  me, 

*  The  morning  of  Mr.  Vallandigham's  arrest,  May  5,  1863,  he  wrote  a  brief 
address  in  pencil,  and  found  means  to  send  it  out  from  the  Mihtary  Prison  at  Cin- 
cinnati, declaring  that  it  was  only  because  of  his  political  opinions  and  the  defend- 
ing of  them  before  the  people,  that  he  was  in  bonds,  and  added :  "  As  for  myself, 
I  adhere  to  every  principle,  and  will  make  good,  through  imprisonment  and  by 
the  sacrifice  of  life  itself,  every  pledge  and  declaration  which  I  have  ever  made, 
uttered,  or  maintained  from  the  beginning.  To  you,  to  the  whole  people,  to 
Time,  I  again  appeal.     Stand  firm  I     Falter  not  an  instant  I" 


506  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

to  have  compulsory  process  for  witnesses  in  my  behalf,  the  assistance 
of  counsel  for  my  defence,  and  evidence  and  argument  according  to  the 
common  law  and  the  ways  of  Judicial  Courts. 

And  all  these  I  here  demand  as  my  right  as  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  and  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

But  the  alle^^ed  "  oflfence"  is  not  known  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  nor  to  any  law  thereof.  It  is  words  spoken  to  the 
people  of  Ohio  in  an  open  and  public  political  meeting,  lawfully  and 
peaceably  assembled,  under  the  Constitution  and  upon  full  notice.  It 
is  words  of  criticism  of  the  public  policy  of  the  public  servants  of  the 
people,  by  which  policy  it  was  alleged  that  the  welfare  of  the  country 
was  not  promoted.  It  was  an  appeal  to  tlie  people  to  change  that 
policy,  not  by  force,  but  by  free  elections  and  the  ballot-box.  It  is 
not  pretended  that  I  counselled  disobedience  to  the  Constitution,  or  re- 
sistance to  laws  and  lawful  authority.     I  never  have. 

Beyond  this  protest,  I  have  nothing  further  to  submit. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  OHIO  UPON  HIS  GOING  INTO  EXILE.* 

MiLTTART  Prison,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  May  22,  1863. 

Banished  from  my  native  State  for  no  crime  save  Democratic  opin- 
ions and  free  speech  to  you  in  their  defence,  and  about  to  go  into 
exile,  not  of  my  own  will,  but  by  the  compulsion  of  an  arbitrary  and 
tyrannic  power  which  I  cannot  resist,  allow  me  a  parting  word. 
Because  despotism  and  superior  force  so  will  it,  I  go  within  the  Con- 
federate lines.  I  well  understand  the  purpose  of  this  order.  But  in 
vain  the  malice  of  enemies  shall  thus  contrive  to  give  color  to  the  cal- 
umnies and  misrepresentations  of  the  past  two  years.  They  little  com- 
prehend the  true  character  of  the  man  with  whom  they  have  to  deal. 
No  order  of  banishment,  executed  by  superior  force,  can  release  me 
from  my  obligations  or  deprive  me  of  my  rights  as  a  citizen  of  Ohio 
and  of  the  United  States.  My  allegiance  to  my  own  State  and  Govern- 
ment I  shall  recognize,  wheresoever  I  may  be,  as  binding  in  all  things, 
iust  the  same  as  though  I  remained  upon  their  soil.     Every  sentiment 

*  Upon  arriving  at  the  lines,  on  the  25th  of  May,  Mr.  Vallaxdigham  said  to 
the  Confederate  soldiers  sent  to  meet  him,  the  Federal  officers  also  being  present : 
"  I  am  a  citizen  of  Ohio,  and  of  the  United  States,  still  claiming  and  owing  allegiance 
to  both.  I  am,  within  your  lines  against  my  will  and  by  military  compulsion,  and 
therefore  surrender  myself  a  prisoner  of  war." 


UPON   AEEIYING   IN    CANADA.  507 

and  expression  of  attachment  to  the  Union  and  devotion  to  the  Consti- 
tution—to my  country — which  I  have  ever  cherished  or  uttered,  shall 
abide  unchanged  and  unretracted  till  my  return.  Meantime,  I  will  not 
doubt  that  the  people  of  Ohio,  cowering  not  a  moment  before  either 
the  threats  or  the  exercise  of  arbitrary  power,  will,  in  every  trial,  prove 
themselves  worthy  to  be  called  freemen. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OP  OHIO,  UPON  ARRIVING  IN  CANADA. 

Clifton  House,  Niagara  Falls,  Canada  "West,  ) 
July  15,  1S63.  )■ 

Arrested  and  confined  for  three  weeks  in  the  United  States,  a  pris- 
oner of  State ;  banished  thence  to  the  Confederate  States,  and  there 
held  as  an  alien  enemy  and  prisoner  of  war,  though  on  parole,  fairly 
and  honorably  dealt  with  and  given  leave  to  depart,  an  act  possible  only 
by  running  the  blockade  at  the  hazard  of  being  fired  on  by  ships  flying 
the  flag  of  my  own  country,  I  found  myself  a  freeman  when  upon 
British  soil.  And  to-day  under  the  protection  of  the  British  flag,  I  am 
here  to  enjoy  and  in  part  to  exercise  the  privileges  and  rights  which 
usurpers  insolently  deny  me  at  home.  The  shallow  contrivance  of  the 
weak  despots  at  Washington,  and  their  advisers,  has  been  defeated. 
Nay,  it  has  been  turned  against  them ;  and  I,  who  for  two  years  was 
maligned  as  in  secret  league  with  the  Confederates,  having  refused, 
when  in  their  midst,  under  circumstances  the  most  favorable,  either  to 
identify  myself  with  their  cause,  or  even  so  much  as  to  remain,  prefer- 
ring rather  exile  in  a  foreign  land,  return  now  with  allegiance  to  my 
own  State  and  government,  unbroken  in  word,  thought,  or  deed,  and 
with  every  declaration  and  pledge  to  you  while  at  home,  and  before  I 
was  stolen  away,  made  good  in  spirit  and  to  the  very  letter. 

Six  weeks  ago,  when  just  going  into  banishment  because  an  auda- 
cious but  most  cowardly  despotism  caused  it,  I  addressed  you  as  a 
fellow-citizen.  To-day  and  from  the  very  place  then  selected  by  me, 
but  after  wearisome  and  most  perilous  journeyings  for  more  than  four 
thousand  miles  by  land  and  upon  the  sea,  still  in  exile,  though  almost 
in  sight  of  my  native  State,  I  greet  you  as  your  Representative.  Grate- 
ful certainly  I  am,  for  the  confidence  in  my  integrity  and  patriotism, 
implied  by  the  unanimous  nomination  as  candidate  for  Governor  of 
Ohio,  which  you  gave  me  while  I  was  yet  in  the  Confederate  States. 


508  VALLA^"DIGHAM's   SPEECHES. 

It  was  not  misplaced ;  it  shall  never  be  abused.  But  this  is  the  least 
of  all  considerations  in  times  like  these.  I  ask  no  personal  sympathy 
for  the  personul  wrong.  No,  it  is  the  cause  of  constitutional  liberty 
and  private  right  cruelly  outraged  beyond  example  in  a  free  country,  by 
the  President  and  his  servants,  which  gives  public  significancy  to  the 
action  of  your  Convention.  Yours  was,  indeed,  an  act  of  justice  to  a 
citizen,  who,  for  his  devotion  to  the  rights  of  the  States  and  the  liber- 
ties of  the  people,  had  been  marked  for  destruction  by  the  hand  of 
arbitrary  power.  But  it  was  much  more.  It  was  an  example  of  cour- 
age worthy  of  the  heroic  ages  of  the  world  ;  and  it  was  a  spectacle  and 
a  rebuke  to  the  usurping  tyrants,  who,  having  broken  up  the  Union, 
would  now  strike  down  the  Constitution,  subvert  your  present  Govern- 
ment and  establish  a  formal  and  proclaimed  despotism  in  its  stead. 
You  are  the  Restorers  and  Defenders  of  Constitutional  Liberty, 
and  by  that  proud  title  history  will  salute  you. 

I  congratulate  you  upon  your  nominations.  They  whom  you  have 
placed  upon  the  ticket  with  me,  are  gentlemen  of  character,  ability, 
integrity,  and  tried  fidelity  to  the  Constitution,  the  Union,  and  to  Lib- 
erty. Their  moral  and  political  courage — a  quality  always  rare,  and 
now  the  most  valuable  of  public  virtues — is  beyond  question.  Every 
way,  all  these  were  nominations  eminently  fit  to  be  made.  And  even 
jealousy,  I  am  sure,  will  now  be  hushed,  if  I  especially  rejoice  with  you 
in  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Pugh  as  your  candidate  for  Lieutenant- 
Governor  and  President  of  the  Senate.  A  scholar  and  a  gentleman,  a 
soldier  in  a  foreign  war,  and  always  a  patriot ;  eminent  as  a  lawyer, 
and  distinguished  as  an  orator  and  statesman,  I  hail  his  acceptance  as 
an  omen  of  the  return  of  the  better  and  more  virtuous  days  of  the 
Republic. 

I  indorse  your  noble  platform ;  elegant  in  style — admirable  in  sen- 
timent. You  present  the  true  issue  and  commit  yourselves  to  the  great 
mission  just  now  of  the  Democratic  party — to  restore  and  make  sure 
FIRST  the  rights  and  liberties  declared  yours  by  your  constitutions.  It 
is  in  vain  to  rnvite  the  States  and  people  of  the  South  to  return  to  a 
Union  without  a  Constitution,  and  dishonored  and  polluted  by  repeated 
and  most  aggravated  exertions  of  tyrannic  power.  It  is  base  in  your- 
selves, and  treasonable  to  your  posterity,  to  surrender  these  liberties 
and  rights  to  the  creatures  whom  your  own  breath  created  and  can 
destroy.  Shall  there  be  free  speech,  a  free  press,  peaceable  assem- 
blages of  the  people,  and  a  free  ballot  in  Ohio?  Shall  the  people  here- 
after, as  hitherto,  have  the  right  to  discuss  and  condemn  the  principles 
and  policy  of  the  party — the  ministry — the  men  who,  for  the  time,  con- 
duct the  Government — to  demand  of  their  public  servants  a  reckoning 
of  their  stewardship,  and  to  place  other  men  and  another  party  in 


UPOX   AEKIVING   I]Nr    CANADA.  509 

power  at  their  supreme  will  and  pleasure?  Shall  Order  Thirty-Eight 
or  the  Constitution  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  ?  And  shall  the 
citizen  any  more,  be  arrested  by  an  armed  soldiery  at  midnight,  dragged 
from  wife  and  child  and  home,  to  a  military  prison  ;  thence  to  a  mock 
military  trial;  there  condemned  and  then  banished  as  a  felon,  for  the 
exercise  of  his  rights?  That  is  the  issue,  and  nobly  you  have  met  it. 
It  is  the  very  question  of  free,  popular  government  itself.  It  is  the 
whole  question:  upon  the  one  side,  liberty;  on  the  other,  despotism. 
The  President  as  the  recognized  head  of  his  party,  accepts  the  issue. 
Whatever  he  wills,  that  is  law.  Constitutions,  State  and  Federal,  are 
nothing;  acts  of  legislation  nothing;  the  judiciary  less  than  nothing. 
In  time  of  war,  there  is  but  one  will  supreme — his  will ;  but  one  law — 
military  necessity,  and  he  the  sole  judge.  Military  orders  supersede 
the  Constitution,  and  military  commissions  usurp  the  place  of  the  or- 
dinary courts  of  justice  in  the  land.  Nor  are  these  mere  idle  claims. 
For  two  years  and  more,  by  arms,  they  have  been  enforced.  It  was 
the  mission  of  the  weak  but  presumptuous  Burnside — a  name  infamous 
forever  in  the  ears  of  all  lovers  of  constitutional  liberty — to  try  the  ex- 
periment in  Ohio — aided  by  a  judge  whom  I  name  not,  because  he  has 
brought  foul  dishonor  upon  the  judiciary  of  my  country.  In  your 
hands  now,  men  of  Ohio,  is  the  final  issue  of  the  experiment.  The 
party  of  the  Administration  have  accepted  it.  By  pledging  support  to 
the  President,  they  have  justified  his  outrages  upon  liberty  and  the 
Constitution  ;  and  whoever  gives  his  vote  to  the  candidates  of  that 
party,  commits  himself  to  every  act  of  violence  and  wrong  on  the  part 
of  the  Administration  which  he  upholds  ;  and  thus,  by  the  law  of  retali- 
ation, which  is  the  law  of  might,  would  forfeit  his  own  right  to  liberty, 
personal  and  political,  whensoever  other  men  and  another  party  shall 
hold  the  power.  Much  more  do  the  candidates  themselves.  Suffer 
them  not,  I  entreat  you,  to  evade  the  issue  ;  and  by  the  judgment  of 
the  people  we  will  abide. 

And  now,  finally,  let  me  ask,  what  is  the  pretext  for  all  the  monstrous 
acts  and  claims  of  arbitrary  power  which  you  have  so  boldly  and  nobly 
denounced  ?  "  Military  necessity,"  But  if,  indeed,  all  these  be  de- 
manded by  military  necessity,  then,  believe  me,  your  liberties  are  gone, 
and  tyranny  is  perpetual  For  if  this  civil  war  is  to  terminate  only  by 
the  subjugation  or  submission  of  the  South  to  force  and  arms,  the 
infant  to-day  will  not  live  to  see  the  end  of  it.  No,  in  another  way 
only  can  it  be  brought  to  a  close.  Travelling  a  thousand  miles  and 
more,  through  nearly  one-half  of  the  Confederate  States,  and  sojourning 
for  a  time  at  widely  different  points,  I  met  not  one  man,  woman,  or 
child,  who  was  not  resolved  to  perish  rather  than  yield  to  the  pressure 
of  arms  even  in  the   most  desperate  extremity.     And  whatever  may 


510  valla]s^digham's  speeches. 

and  must  be  the  varying  fortune  of  the  war,  in  all  which  I  recognize 
the  hand  of  rrovidence  pointing  visibly  to  the  ultimate  issue  of  this 
great  trial  of  the  States  and  people  of  America,  they  are  better  pre- 
pared now  every  way,  to  make  good  their  inexorable  purpose,  than  at 
any  period  since  the  beginning  of  the  struggle.  These  may  indeed  be 
unwelcome  truths;  but  they  are  addressed  only  to  candid  and  honest 
men.  Neither,  however,  let  me  add,  did  I  meet  any  one,  whatever  his 
opinions  or  his  station,  political  or  private,  who  did  not  declare  his 
readiness,  when  the  war  shall  have  ceased  and  invading  armies  been 
withdrawn,  to  consider  and  discuss  the  question  of  reunion.  And  who 
shall  doubt  the  issue  of  the  argument  ?  I  return,  therefore,  with  my 
opinions  and  convictions  as  to  war  or  peace,  and  my  faith  as  to  final 
results  from  sound  policy  and  wise  statesmanship,  not  only  unchanged, 
but  confirmed  and  strengthened.  And  may  the  God  of  Heaven  and 
Earth  so  rule  the  hearts  and  minds  of  Americans  everywhere,  that  with 
a  Constitution  maintained,  a  Union  restored,  and  Liberty  henceforth 
made  secure,  a  grander  and  nobler  destiny  shall  yet  be  ours,  than  that 
even  which  blessed  our  fathers  in  the  first  two  ages  of  the  Republic. 


LETTER   TO   THE   DEMOCRATIC   MEETING  AT  TOLEDO. 

Table  Rock  House,  i 

Niagara  Falls,  C.  "W.,  July  31,  1863.  \ 

Messrs.  Thomas  Dunlap,  H.  P.  Platt,  John  T.   Maiier,  John  G. 
Isham,  J.  C.  Wales,  and  others,  Committee,  etc. 

Gentlemen  :  Unable  to  attend  your  meeting,  of  the  5th  of  August, 
in  person,  permit  me  to  address  you  by  letter  briefly. 

I  waste  no  part  of  your  time  in  personal  defence.  To  the  candidates, 
speakers,  and  writers  of  the  Administration  party,  I  leave,  undisturbed, 
the  brave  and  chivalrous  work  of  assailing  an  opponent,  absent  because 
the  tyrannic  power  of  their  master,  executed  by  military  force,  compels 
it.  The  Qfreat  issue  of  the  day  ouo;ht  not  to  be  subordinated  to  things 
merely  personal ;  and  I  recommend  to  my  friends  generally  that  they 
imitate  the  wise  Romans,  and  "  carry  the  war  into  Africa." 

The  Democracy  of  Lucas,  postponing  all  other  issues,  and  ignoring 
all  diflferences  of  opinion  in  regard  to  them,  assemble,  of  course,  to 
consider  what  General  Fremont,  the  candidate  of  the  "  free  speech  and 
free  press"  Republican  party,  of  1856,  very  aptly  styles  "  the  uppermost 
question  of  the  day" — the  question  of  their  own  constitutional  rights 


TO    DE:.r0CRATIC    MEETING    AT    TOLEDO.  511 

and  liberties.  This  is  the  practical  issue  in  the  Ohio  campaign,  forced 
by  the  President  and  his  party  upon  the  people;  and  boldly  met  by 
the  Democracy  in  their  nominations,  as  also  in  their  admirable  plat- 
form, which,  as  a  candidate,  I  accept  as  their  solemn  and  deliberate 
confession  of  political  faith,  and  their  pledge  to  the  country  that  they 
mean  to  defend  the  rigrhts  asserted  in  it,  with  their  lives,  their  fortunes, 
and  their  sacred  honors.  Until  these  shall  have  been  made  secure,  it 
can  be  neither  useful  nor  possible  to  discuss  any  other  question  not 
directly  connected  with  it.  There  is,  indeed,  just  such  a  question — 
one  second  only  in  importance  to  that  of  public  liberty — the  Union  of 
the  States,  worth  the  whole  world  to  the  American  people.  But  Lib- 
erty is  the  soul  of  a  people  ;  and  what  shall  it  profit  us  to  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  our  own  soul  ?  The  Constitution  made  the 
Union,  and,  when  the  war  began,  it  was  proclaimed  to  be  for  tho  su- 
premacy of  the  Constitution  and  laws ;  and  whatever  diflference  of 
opinion  there  may  have  been,  even  then,  as  to  the  mode  of  securing  it, 
every  patriotic  citizen  of  the  United  States  knew  what  the  laws  and 
Constitution  were.  But  what  do  we  see  to-day?  The  opinion  and 
will,  from  hour  to  hour,  of  the  President — and  such  a  President ! — is 
solemnly  and  officially  proclaimed  superior  to  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws,  even  in  the  States  wholly  loyal.  So  that  upon  the  present  policy 
of  the  Administration  and  its  party,  declared  unchangeable,  the  South 
is  to  be  forced  to  submit  to  the  will  and  opinion  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
instead  of  written  fundamental  statute  and  common  law.  And  if  we 
ourselves  scorn  to  yield  up  our  constitutional  rights  and  liberties  to  this 
monstrous  demand,  does  any  honorable  man,  any  sane  man,  ask  or  ex- 
pect the  States  and  people  of  the  South  to  surrender,  so  long  as  a  man 
survives  to  strike  a  blow,  or  a  woman  to  strengthen  his  heart  or  nerve 
his  arm  ?  Upon  such  a  policy  this  war  must  and  will  be  interminable. 
So  many  square  miles  may  be  overrun,  so  much  soil  may  be  conquered, 
but  the  hearts  of  the  people  never. 

How,  then,  stand  the  chances  of  the  Union,  measured  by  the  two 
different  policies  of  the  Abolition  and  Democratic  parties? 

The  party  of  the  Administration  declares  that  the  States  and  people 
of  the  South  shall  be  forced  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  submit.  What 
then  ?  Confiscation  of  all  property,  emancipation  of  ail  slaves,  and 
execution  of  all  who,  directly  or  indirectly,  have  taken  part  in  the  re- 
bellion :  namely,  nine-tenths  of  the  whole  population  ;  for  no  general 
amnesty  has  ever  as  yet  been  so  much  as  suggested  by  either  Congress  or 
the  Executive,  and  unconditional  submission  is  now  the  least  which  is 
demanded.  More  than  this  :  as  to  any  State  which  may  first  submit  or 
be  conquered,  conscription  of  every  male  person,  white  or  black,  be- 
tween twenty  and  forty-five,  for  the  conquest  of  the  States  still  in  arms. 


"TT 


512  tallandigiiam's  speeches. 

Nor  is  this  tlie  worst ;  for  inasmuch  as  all  slaves  and  free  neafroes 
South  are  considered  "loyal,"  and  nearly  all  white  men  and  women 
"  disloyal,"  and,  therefore,  as  having  forfeited  all  rights,  the  negroes, 
then  all  free,  are  to  be  treated  as  almost  the  only  persons  entitled  to 
the  several  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship,  and  especially  the  very 
soldiers  to  garrison  the  South.  And  now  add  to  all  this  :  suppression 
of  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  suspension  of  habeas  corpus, 
martial  law,  arbitrary  arrests,  imprisonments,  banishments,  interference 
with  elections,  test  oaths,  appropriation  of  private  houses,  seizure  of 
private  property,  and  every  other  act  of  oppression,  outrage,  and  despot- 
ism, wliich  for  two  years  have  been  mercilessly  practised  even  in  States 
never  in  insurrection,  but  alwavs  true  to  the  Union. 

This  is  the  Entertainment  to  which,  under  the  present  policy  of  the 
Administration,  dictated  by  the  radicals  who  control  it,  the  States  and 
people  of  the  South  are  invited.  And  repeatedly  the  question  was  put 
to  me  while  among  them,  "  If  the  citizens  of  the  States  still  adhering  to 
the  Union  are  continually  arrested,  imprisoned,  banished,  or  otherwise 
outraged,  merely  because  of  their  political  opinions,  or  for  censure  and 
criticism  of  the  men  and  party  in  power,  what  would  not  be  done  with 
us  if  we  should  be  conquered  or  were  to  submit  ?"  In  fact,  it  is  this 
very  policy  which,  instead  of  "  crushing  out  the  rebellion,"  crushed  out 
all  Union  sentiment  among  them,  and  made,  as  it  still  keeps  them,  a 
unit  in  numbers  and  spirit,  against  the  force  and  arms  of  the  Federal 
Government.  It  was  the  repeated  confession  to  me,  personally,  of  sev-  ,. 
eral  of  the  most  distinguished  public  men  of  the  Southwest,  that  if 
General  Buell  had  been  retained  in  command,  and  permitted  to  con- 
tinue his  policy  of  peace  and  conciliation — acting  the  officer  and  gentle- 
man, observing  private  rights,  respecting  private  property,  returning 
fugitive  slaves,  and  tolerating  all  political  opinions,  whether  in  sym- 
pathy with  Secession  or  not,  so  long  as  not  carried  out  into  overt 
acts — the  people  of  Tennessee  would  have  voluntarily  returned  to  the 
Union  six  months  ago.  And  they  rejoiced  in  the  change  of  policy  and 
his  removal.  But  the  mischief  has  been  consummated,  and  no  suc- 
cess of  arms,  no  number  of  victories  can  repair  it.  Not  only  an- 
other policy,  but  other  instrumentalities,  alone  can  now  restore  the 
Union. 

What,  upon  the  other  hand,  does  the  Democratic  party  propose  to 
the  States  and  people  of  the  South  ?  Not  Confiscation,  nor  Emanci- 
pation, nor  Conscription,  nor  Execution,  and  certainly  not  the  equality, 
or,  rather,  the  superiority,  of  the  negro  race,  but  the  Constitution  with 
all  its  guarantees,  the  rights  of  the  States,  and  the  liberties  of  the 
people.  We  would  restore  the  Union,  and  with  it  give  them  quiet 
and  security  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  rights,  properties,  and  institutions 


TO   DEMOCRATIC    MEETING   AT    TOLEDO.  513 

of  every  kind,  as  in  the  beginning  of  the  Government,  and  before 
anatics  and  demagoi>;ues  made  slavery  a  subject  of  moral  or  political 
agitation.  We  promise,  also,  to  ourselves,  and  of  course  to  tliem,  a 
free  press,  free  speech,  free  elections,  liberty  of  conscience  and  opinion, 
habeas  corpus,  due  process  of  law,  judicial  trial,  trial  by  jury,  no  mid- 
night arrests,  no  martial  law,  no  military  orders  or  commissions,  n-o 
provost-marshals,  no  military  governors.  In  short,  we  ask  and  offer 
nothing  but  the  Constitution,  the  Union,  and  the  Laws. 

Which  policy,  then,  let  me  ask,  is  best  calculati^d  to  restore  the 
Union  ?  Which  party  best  able  to  effect  the  restoration  ?  All  wise 
and  candid  men  now  admit,  that  even  if  the  military  power  of  the  Con- 
federate States  could  be  broken  down  by  force,  and  her  armies  dissi- 
pated, the  final  settlement  of  this  great  controversy  must  be  the  result 
of  statesmainhip,  not  arras — conciliation,  not  force.  And  to  whom  but 
Democratic  statesmen,  untainted  with  Abolitionism,  and  in  whose  wis- 
dom and  integrity  the  people  of  all  sections — South  as  well  as  North 
and  W'est — have  confidence,  can  the  work  be  securely  committed  ? 
Can  they  accomplish  it  who  come  with  acts  and  proclamations  of  abo- 
lition, confiscation,  conscription,  and  death — men  who  are  for  no  peacf 
or  unioa  till  slavery  is  abolished  ?  Beliave  me,  the  success  of  tht 
Democratic  ticket  this  fall,  in  Ohio,  will  do  more,  not  only  for  consti- 
tutional liberty,  but  for  the  Union,  than  such  men  could  accomplish  in 
a  hundred  years. 

I  need  not  repeat  my  often-declared  conviction,  which  time  has  al- 
ways vindicated,  that  the  South  cannot  be  conquered  by  force  and 
arms.  But  crrantino:,  for  arojuraent's  sake,  "  the  effectual  check  and 
waning  proportions  of  the  rebellion,"  as  proclaimed  now  again  for  the 
hundredth  time,  by  the  organs  of  the  Administration,  and  that,  by  the 
second  Monday  in  January  next,  all  the  armies  of  the  Confederates  will 
have  been  captured  or  dispersed,  and  their  remaining  five  hundred 
thousand  square  miles  of  territory  overrun  and  occupied,  then  the  hour 
for  the  pacification  of  the  South  and  conciliation  of  her  people  will 
have  arrived.  And  which  party  will  most  readily  be  hearkened  to  by 
them  ?  Who,  as  Governor  of  Ohio,  will  be  the  most  efficient  asfent  in 
that  great  and  arduous  work?  Your  candidate,  committed  wholly  to 
the  restoration  of  the  Union  as  it  was ;  or  the  candidate  of  the  Ad- 
ministration, pledged  to  a  policy  full,  upon  the  one  hand,  of  continual 
exasperation  and  hate,  and  on  the  other,  of  insurrection  and  revenge  ? 
Very  momentous  are  these  questions  ;  for  until  that  shall  have  been 
accomplished,  there  can  be  neither  Constitution  nor  Union,  and  no  se- 
curity and  no  quiet  in  the  land ;  nor  can  a  single  soldier,  till  then, 
returns  to  mother.  Or  wife,  or  child,  or  home.  Reason  together,  then, 
men  of  Ohio,  and  judge  Avisclv,  ye  who  love  your  country,  and  would 
33 


514  vallandigiiam's  speeches. 

restore  to  its  former  peace,  prosperity,  and  glory.  Continual  war  and 
strife  are  the  forbidden  fruit  of  our  political  Eden,  and  bear  still  the 
primal  curse,  uttered  in  tones  louder  than  the  voice  of  the  mighty  Cata- 
ract in  whose  presence  I  now  write — "/«  the  day  thai  thou  eatest 
thereof  thou  shall  surely  die.'''' 


LETTER   TO   THE   DEMOCRATIC    MEETING   AT    DAYTON. 

"Windsor,  C.  W.,  September  15,  1863. 
President  of  the  Democratic  Mass  Meeting,  Dayton,  Ohio  : 

Sir  :  Complying  with  the  desire  of  many  of  my  Democratic  friends 
in  the  city  and  county  where  I  have  for  so  many  years  resided,  I  ad- 
dress them  briefly  through  you. 

No  further  warning  or  entreaty  from  me  is  needed  to  arouse  the  people 
to  the  importance  of  the  great  issue  before  them,  and  to  the  danger 
which  on  every  side  threatens  their  liberties.  The  great  popular  de- 
monstrations, occurring  every  day  throughout  the  State,  prove  their 
zeal  and  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Liberty  and  Union,  and  that  they 
mean  that  these  two  shall  in  very  deed  be  inseparable.  Both  these  de- 
pend largely  upon  the  issue  of  the  Ohio  campaign.  If  that  party 
should  succeed,  which,  upon  the  one  hand,  applauds  the  atrocious  acts 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  servants,  and  indorses  the  monstrous  claim 
of  absolute  power  over  person  and  property,  not  to  say  life  itself,  set  up 
by  him  in  his  recent  letters  to  the  Albany  and  Columbus  Committees ; 
and,  on  the  other,  accepts  as  its  own,  the  whole  radical  policy,  "  root 
and  branch,"  of  Congress  and  the  Executive  in  the  conduct  of  the  war, 
there  is  an  end  to  both.  In  the  North  and  West,  every  lover  of  con- 
stitutional liberty  looks  anxiously  to  the  approaching  elections.  In  the 
South,  the  eyes  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  who  yet,  in  their  hearts,  love 
the  L^nion  as  it  was,  the  old  Union  which  their  fathers  and  our  fathers 
made,  and  would  gladly  see  it  restored  in  peace  and  with  security  to  all, 
are  turned  now  in  earnest  desire  for  the  triumph  of  the  Democratic 
party,  as  their  last  hope  for  its  restoration.  And  the  very  successes  of 
the  Federal  army  do  but  render  this  triumph  the  more  important;  for 
while,  according  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  th(!y  have  not  at  all  broken  the 
strength  or  subdued  the  spirit  of  the  Confederates  in  arms,  they  have 
done  much  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  the  States  still  adhering 
to  the  Union,  to  the  fact  that  the  policy  of  conciliation  must  at  least 
follow — far  better  that  before  any  war  it  had  preceded — the  policy  of 


TO    DEMOCKATIC    MEETING    AT   DAYTOJiT.  515 

coercion.     Moreover,  the  recent  extraordinary  events-  in  Mexico  have 
greatly  augmented  the  necessity  and  importance   of  speedily  putting 
into  power  the  party  in   whose  hands  the  rights   and  interest  of  a!) 
States  and  sections  will  be  secure.    Recognition  by  Mexico  and  France, 
and  subsequent  alliance  between  them  and  the  Confederate  States,  are 
impending  dangers,  every  hour  becoming  more  imminent.     Napoleon 
well  knows,  and  Joseph  of  Austria  also,  whom  he  has  enlisted  now  with 
him,  that  if  a  united  government  of  any  kind  be  restored  here,  either 
"  the  Union  as  it  was"  of  the  Democrats,  or  "  the  Union  as  it  should 
be"  of  the  Abolitionists — a  unity  of  despotism — no  Empire,  at  least  no 
European  Empire,  would  be  permitted  to  continue  in  Mexico.     Hence 
he,  and  all  whom  he  can  persuade  or  force  with  him,  will  ver)?-  speedily 
recognize  the  Confederate  States,  on  condition  of  a  guarantee  of  the 
Mexican  Empire,  and  that  by  a  treaty  of  alliance  offensive  and  defen- 
sive, as  did  Louis  XVI.  in  1777.     And  thus  the  leaders  of  the  South- 
ern revolt  will  be  enabled  to  keep  the  whole  people  with  them,  encour- 
aged, as  they  will  be,  by  the  powerful  support  of  the  army,  the  navy, 
and  the  credit  of  France.     The  alleged  mission  of  Mr.  Stephens  to 
Paris  clearly  points  to  this  result.     Unwisely  and  wickedly  rejected  by 
the  Court  at  Washington,  where,  according  to  Southern  authority,  he 
came  with  "  full   powers  to  treat  for  peace  and  settlement,"  he  goes 
now,  as  is  said,  on  special   embassy  to  the  Court  of  Versailles.     The 
disastrous  results  of  the  success  of  such  embassy,  either  through  him  or 
Mr.  Slidell  already  there,  upon  the  interests  and   future  peace   of  the 
Northwest,   no  man  can  calculate.     Then,   indeed,  along  with  perma- 
nent disruption  of  the  Union,  and  other  numberless  calamities,  would 
the  Mississippi  be  effectually  sealed  against  us,  except  upon  such  terms 
as  foreign  nations  may  choose  to   impose  ;  and   thus  every  city  and 
town  upon  that  great  river  and  its  tributaries,  would  begin  to  fall  into 
decay.     Victories  in  the  field  will  not  at  all  tend  to  retard  or  prevent 
this  alliance  and  its  ruinous  results.     Now,  therefore,  is   the  accepted 
time,  the  very  hour  before  the   blow  be   struck,  for  the  people   of  the 
North  and  West  to  rebuke  the   radicals   and   malignants  who   control 
public  affairs,  and  prove  to  the  people  of  the  South  that  they  can  re- 
turn to  their  allegiance  to   the  Constitution,  and   thus  to  the   Union, 
"with  all  the  dignity,  equality,  and  rights  of  their  several  States  unim- 
paired."    I  repeat  that  the  success   of  the   Democratic  party  in  Ohio 
and  the  other  States  will  go  further  toward  this  result  than  any  event 
which  can  happen  within  the  next  twelve  months.     Shall  the  golden 
moment  to  aid  powerfully  in  the  restoration  of  the  Union  as  it  was,  be 
suffered  to  pass  by  ? 

Upon   another  subject  allow  me  now  a  word,  not  volunteered,  but 
called  out  and  made  appropriate  by  those  who  assail  me. 


516  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

The  candidate  of  the  Administration  party  is  reported  to  have 
spoken  recently  at  Columbus,  in  a  public  meeting,  in  substance  as  fol- 
lows : 

"What  will  be  the  effect  of  electingr  Mr.  Vallandicrliam  Governor  of 
Ohio  ?  I  will  tell  you  what  the  effect  of  it  will  be.  It  will  inaugurate 
civil  war  in  your  State.  It  will  brinir  civil  war  to  your  homes,  upon 
the  soil  of  your  own  State ;  for  I  tell  you  there  is  a  mighty  mass  of 
men  in  this  State  whose  nerves  are  strung  up  like  steel,  who  will  never 
permit  this  dishonor  to  be  consummated  in  their  native  State.  An- 
other effect  will  be  that  it  will  be  an  invitation  to  the  rebels  in  arms  to 
come  up  and  take  possession  of  our  soil." 

Now  I  have  so  often  myself  been  made  the  subject  of  false  statement 
and  misreport,  that  I  will  not  hold  Mr.  Brough  responsible  for  either 
the  sentiment  above  expressed,  or  the  presumptuous  silliness  of  referring 
to  the  election  by  the  people  of  his  opponent,  as  bringing  "dishonor" 
upon  the  State.  But  I  know  that  the  proposition  itself  is  beginning  to 
be  urged  by  many  of  his  friends  as  a  menace  to  the  freemen  of  Ohio  ; 
and  I  choose  to  meet  it  flatly. 

First.  The  "  invitation  to  rebels  in  arras"  which  my  election  will 
signifv,  will  be  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  return  to  the  old  Union  and 
to  obedience  to  and  protection  under  the  Constitution,  laws,  and  flag, 
secure  from  Abolition  intermeddling  and  agitation,  as  before  the  war, 
and  from  conscription,  confiscation,  execution,  emancipation,  negro 
equality,  and  all  exertions  of  arbitrary,  despotic  power  since. 

Second.  There  will  be  no  "  civil  war"  in  Ohio  if  I  am  elected  Gov- 
ernor, unless  Mr.  Brough  and  his  party  inaugurate  it;  in  which  event 
we  will  "  crush  out  the  rebellion"  in  a  very  much  shorter  space  of  time 
than  they  have  employed  in  putting  down  the  "  slaveholders'  rebellion." 
If,  however,  he  means  that  they  will  "secede"  from  the  State  by  volun- 
tary exile  to  Canada,  or  elsewhere,  there  will  be  no  "  coercion"  in  that 
event.  But  the  threat,  if  intended  to  intimidate,  is  as  the  idle  wind  :  if 
meant  seriously,  it  is  time  that  the  people  should  know  it,  that  they  may 
afiix  the  mark  of  Cain  upon  the  foreheads  of  these  new  conspirators 
against  the  ballot-box.  In  any  event,  he  whom  a  majority  of  the 
"  qualified  electors"  of  Ohio  may  choose  for  their  Governor,  will  be  in- 
augurated, and  the  vast  mass  of  the  people,  without  distinction  of  party, 
■will  aid,  if  need  be,  in  the  work  of  keeping  the  peace  of  the  State,  and 
carrying  out  the  fundamental  maxim  of  popular  governments,  that  the 
"  majority  must  govern."  For  let  Mr.  Brough,  and  all  others  who 
■would  defeat  the  will  of  the  people,  take  notice  that  "  there  is  a  mighty 
mass  of  men  in  Ohio  whose  nerves  are  strung  up  like  steel,"  who  mean 
that  the  man  who  is  the  choice  of  the  people  shall  be  the  people's  Gov- 
ernor.    Should  that  choice  fall  upon  me,  all  the  duties  of  the  oflSice  shall 


I 


TO   DEMOCRATIC   MEETING  AT   DAYTON.  517 

be  faithfully  and  fearlessly  discharged.  I  would  myself  obey  the  Con- 
stitution and  laws,  and  see  to  it  that  all  others  obeyed  thera  within  her 
limits  and  jurisdiction.  The  courts  should  be  open,  and  restored  once 
more  to  their  rightful  authority ;  justice  administered  without  denial  or 
delay,  and  the  military  in  strict  subordination  to  the  civil  power. 
Habeas  corpus  should  be  respected,  no  citi  zen  arrested  except  upon  due 
process  of  law,  or  held  except  for  trial  by  the  civil  tribunals,  and  none 
kidnapped  from  the  State. 

But  while  the  rigfhts  of  the  State  and  the  liberties  of  her  citizens 
should  be  tlins  strictly  enforced,  the  constitutional  and  lawful  authority 
and  rights  of  the  Federal  Government  should  be  obeyed  and  respected 
■with  scrupulous  fidelity,  no  matter  whp  administered  it.  Whatever 
the  Administration  have  a  rifrht  under  the  Constitution  and  laws  to  de- 
mand  or  expect  from  the  State  Executive,  should  be  promptly  and 
exactly  rendered.  In  short,  I  would  adopt  and  thoroughly  carry  out 
the  two  maxims  upon  this  subject  laid  down  by  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  in- 
augural in  1801  : 

First.  "  The  support  of  the  State  Governments  in  all  their  rights,  as 
the  most  competent  administrations  of  our  domestic  concerns,  and  the 
surest  bulwarks  against  anti-republican  tendencies." 

Second.  "  The  preservation  of  the  General  Government  in  its  whole 
constitutional  vigor,  as  the  sheet-anchor  of  our  peace  at  home  and 
safety  abroad." 

And  in  this  way  would  I  strive,  by  the  quick  and  decisive  exercise 
of  will  and  authority  whenever  necessary  and  proper,  and  by  cheerful 
and  ready  compliance  wherever  due,  to  restore  the  peace,  the  quiet,  the 
economy,  the  good  order  and  harmony  which,  in  former  years,  marked 
the  States,  both  in  their  relation  to  their  own  citizens  and  to  the  Federal 
Government,  and  thus,  in  better  times,  made  the  Union  secure,  and  the 
people  prosperous,  happy,  and  contented.  This,  and  not  "  civil  war" — 
for  ray  "  crime"  is  that  I  am  opposed  to  civil  wars — is  what  ray  election 
would  "  inaugurate"  in  Ohio.  And  now,  men  of  my  native  State,  are 
not  these  just  the  blessings  which  you  and  your  wives  and  your  chil- 
dren, with  longing  hearts  most  earnestly  desire  ?  Defend,  then,  and  hold 
fast  in  every  extremity  to,  the  ballot-box,  and  labor  night  and  day,  I 
invoke  you,  to  secure  these  blessings,  through  that,  the  appointed 
potential  weapon  of  freemen. 


518  vallandigham's  speeches. 

letter  to  democratic  meeting  at  carthage,  0. 

"Windsor,  C.  W.,  September  17,  18G3. 
To  the  President  of  the  Democratic  Mass  Meeting  at  Carthage,  Ohio : 

Since  writing  to  the  Mass  Convention  at  Dayton  to-day,  the  mon- 
strous proclamation  of  the  President  has  appeared,  suspending  the  writ 
of  Habeas  Corpus,  and  thus  declaring  martial  law  throughout  the 
United  States,  in  every  one,  and  every  part  of  every  one  of  them,  and 
in  all  their  territories.  It  comes  without  previous  warning.  It  is  an- 
nounced at  a  time  when  the  successes  of  the  Federal  armies  and  the 
reverses  of  the  Confederates  are  greater  than  at  any  period  since  the 
besinninor  of  the  war;  at  a  time  when  the  lines  of  the  former  are  more 
extended,  and  of  the  latter  more  contracted  and  further  removed  from 
the  original  frontier,  than  ever  before  ;  and  at  a  time  when,  according 
to  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  rebellion  is  at  last  almost  crushed  out. 
It  appears  in  the  midst  of  no  riot,  tumult,  or  other  popular  convulsion 
anywhere  in  the  States  always  true  to  the  Union,  and  no  preparation 
for  any ;  and  when  even  the  odious  "  conscription"  is  being  executed 
quietly  and  without  resistance  wherever  announced.  It  is  to  continue 
"  during  the  rebellion" — the  President  being  the  sole  judge  and  arbiter 
of  how  Ions:  the  rebellion  shall  be  deemed  to  last. 

At  such  a  time,  and  under  such  circumstances,  it  can  have  but  one 
object — the  pending  elections  this  fall,  but  especially  the  Presidential 
canvass  of  1864.  It  is,  indeed,  the  full  development  of  that  of  which  I 
have  so  often  warned  the  people  of  Ohio  and' of  the  United  States — the 
great  conspiracy  against  constitutional  liberty  and  free  popular  govern- 
ment— the  establishment  of  a  "  formal  and  proclaimed  despotism"  in 
your  midst.  Oh,  that  the  warning  voice  had  been  heard,  feeble  though 
it  was,  which  two  years  ago,  in  the  beginning  of  this  great  struggle, 
in  accents  earnest  as  ever  issued  from  human  lips,  cried  aloud  to  the 
people  that,  one  by  one,  their  liberties  were  about  to  perish,  and  that 
anarchy  first  and  a  strong  government  afterwards,  no  more  State  lines, 
no  more  State  governments,  but  a  consolidated  monarchy,  or  vast  cen- 
tralized military  despotism,  must  all  follow  in  the  history  of  the  future, 
as  in  the  history  of  the  past  they  had  centuries  before  been  written. 
But  that  voice  found  no  echo  then,  save  in  the  columns  and  corjidors 
of  the  Capitol.  To-day  it  is  lifted  up  again.  And  hereafter  let  no  man 
tell  you — least  of  all  the  sentinels  upon  your  watch-towers — that  there 
is  no  danger,  no  ground  for  alarm  or  apprehension.  To-day  your  Presi- 
dent is  in  form,  as  for  two  years  and  more  he  has  been  in  fact,  a  Mili- 
tary Dictator.  The  most  incredulous  may  see  at  last  that  the  issue  is, 
ir  leed,  whether  there  shall  any  longer  be  Constitution  and  law  in  the 
United  States,  other  than  the  will,  unknown  or  expressed,  of  the  Presi- 


LETTER  TO   DEMOCRATIC  ]MEETI]S"G  AT   CARTHAGE.    519 

dent ;  whether  freedom  of  person,  of  the  press,  of  speech,  free  political 
assemblages  and  a  free  ballot,  shall  any  raore  exist  among  us ;  and 
whether  the  people  shall  hereafter,  as  heretofore,  choose  the  Legisla- 
tures and  Chief  Executives  of  the  State  and  Federal  Governments. 
Shall  there  be  free  State  elections  any  longer,  or  another  Presidential 
election  of  any  sort  ?  Shall  popular  government  or  a  despotism,  un- 
limited by  law  and  uncontrolled  by  Judicial  Courts,  henceforth  prevail 
in  the  United  States  ?  This  now.  men  of  Ohio,  more  than  ever,  is  the 
issue  before  you.  The  revolutionary  purpose  of  the  Administration  to 
perpetuate,  by  intimidation  or  force^  its  power  in  the  States  and  in  the 
General  Government,  stands  now  fully  revealed.  Next,  after  this  de- 
claration of  martial  law,  will  follow  the  armed  seizure  and  occupation 
of  your  State  by  Federal  troops,  to  intimidate  or  overpower  you  at  the 
polls.  But  this  monstrous  purpose  will  not  and  cannot  be  executed, 
except  the  people  cringe  or  cower  before  the  threat  or  the  attempted 
execution.  The  time,  therefore,  has  now  arrived  for  the  renewed, 
solemn,  inexorable  declaration  and  pledge,  by  the  people  to  each  other, 
through  the  press  and  in  public  assemblages,  that  they  mean  to  main- 
tain their  liberties  at  every  hazard,  and  to  have  and  to  hold  free  elec- 
tions, peaceably  if  they  can,  forcibly  if  they  must.  By  the  Constitu- 
tion of  Ohio,  no  soldier  or  marine  of  the  United  States  can  gain  a  resi- 
dence or  become  a  citizen  and  elector  of  the  State  by  being  stationed 
within  her  limits.  By  the  law  of  England,  and  by  a  provident  statute 
of  Pennsylvania,  all  troops  are  required  to  be  removed  a  prescribed 
distance — not  Jess  than  two  miles — from  the  place  of  holding  an  elec- 
tion ;  and  this,  too,  is  the  spirit  at  least  of  our  own  laws.  Every  quali- 
fied elector  of  Ohio  has  the  right  freely,  and  without  molestation  of 
any  kind,  to  vote  the  ticket  of  his  choice  ;  and  if  Federal  or  State 
troops  be  present  to  molest  or  intimidate — no  matter  under  what  pre- 
text— it  is  the  right  of  the  citizens  and  the  duty  of  the  civil  officers 
and  of  the  militia  to  disperse  or  arrest  the  offenders,  and  to  use  what- 
ever force  may  be  necessary  for  that  purpose. 

I  counsel  you,  one  and  all,  to  stand  by  the  Union,  maintain  the  Con- 
stitution, support  the  Government,  and  obey  the  laws.  But  in  the 
name  and  by  the  memory  of  your  fathers,  and  as  you  would  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  yourselves  and  your  children,  I  invoke  you  to 
defend  the  right  of  election  and  the  ballot-box  by  all  the  means  which 
the  exigencies  of  the  case  may  demand.  The  hour  of  your  trial  has  at 
last  come.  Be  firm  and  be  ready.  And  God  grant  that  the  spirit  of 
the  patriots  and  freemen  of  other  ages  and  countries,  of  the  heroes  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  the  spirit  of  Bruce  and  Tell,  of  Hampden  and 
Sydney,  of  Henry,  and  Washington,  and  Jackson,  piay  be  found  to 
survive  yet  in  the  men  of  the  present  generation  in  America  ;  and  thus 


VALLANDIGIIAM's    SrEECIIES.  520 

that  both  the  form  and  tlie  substance  of  constitutional  liberty  and  free 
popular  government  be  still  preserved  and  made  secure  among  us.* 

ADDRESS  AFTER  THE  ELECTION,  1863. 

"Windsor,  C.  W.,  October  14,  18G3. 

Democrats  of  Ohio  : — You  have  been  beaten — by  what  means  it  is 
idle  now  to  inquire.  It  is  enough  that  while  tens  of  thousands  of  sol- 
diers were  sent  or  kept  within  the  State,  or  held  inactive  in  camp  else- 
where, to  vote  against  you,  the  Confederate  enemy  were  marching  upon 
the  Capital  of  your  country. 

You  were  beaten ;  but  a  nobler  battle  for  constitutional  liberty  and 
free  popular  government  never  was  fought  by  any  people.  And  your 
unconquerable  firmness  and  courage,  even  in  the  midst  of  armed  mili- 
tary force,  secured  you  those  first  of  freemen's  rights — free  speech  and 
a  free  ballot.  The  conspiracy  of  the  5th  of  May  fell  before  you.  Be 
not  discouraged  :  despair  not  of  the  Republic.  Maintain  your  rights, 
stand  firm  to  your  position  ;  never  yield  up  your  principles  or  your 
organization.  Listen  not  to  him  who  would  have  you  lower  your 
standard  in  the  hour  of  defeat.  No  mellowing  of  your  opinions  upon 
any  question,  even  of  policy,  will  avail  any  thing  to  conciliate  your 
political  foes.  They  demand  nothing  less  than  an  absolute  surrender 
of  your  principles  and  your  organisation.  Moreover,  if  there  be  any 
hope  for  the  Constitution  or  liberty,  it  is  in  the  Democratic  partj 
alone;  atid  your  fellow-citizens,  in  a  little  while  longer,  will  see  it. 
Time  and  events  will  force  it  upon  all,  except  those  only  who  profit  by 
the  calamities  of  their  country. 

I  thank  yon,  one  and  all,  for  your  sympathies  and  your  suffrages. 
Be  assured,  that  though  still  in  exile  for  no  offence  but  my  political 
opinions  and  the  free  expression  of  them  to  you  in  peaceable  public 
assembly,  you  will  find  me  ever  steadfast  in  those  opinions,  and  true  to 
the  Constitution  and  to  the  State  and  country  of  my  birth. 

*  Under  the  Constitution,  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  can  be  sus- 
pended only  "  when,  in  case  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  may  require 
it."  The  proclamation  of  the  15th  of  September,  1863,  recites  that,  "  in  the  judg 
ment  of  the  President,  the  public  safety  does  require  that  the  privilege  of  the  saia 
writ  shall  now  be  suspended  throughout  the  United  Slates."  And  yet.  on  the  3d 
of  October,  1863,  less  thqn  three  weeks  later,  Mr.  Lincoln  sot  his  hand  officially 
to  another,  a  "  Thanksgiving"  proclamation,  reciting  that  throughout  the  whole 
year,  "  order  had  been  maintained,  the  laws  respected  and  obeyed,  and  harmony  had  pre- 
vailed EVERYWHERE,  except  in  the  theatre  of  military  conflict." 


TO   THE   STUDENTS    OF   JIICHIGAN   UNIVERSITY.       521 

ADDRESS   TO   THE   STUDENTS  OF   MICHIGAN   UNIVERSITY.* 
At  Windsor,  C.  W.,  Nov.  14,  1863. 

I  THANK  yon,  Young  Gentlemen,  for  this  visit.  I  thank  you,  sir,  es- 
pecially, Mr.  BusKiRK,  for  the  compliments  so  handsomely  expressed  on 
behalf  of  your  fellows.  The  applause  of  the  young  is  the  highest  praise. 
They  speak  the  language  of  the  coming  generation,  and  anticipate  the 
judgment  of  posterity.  To  that  judgment,  if  it  so  b3  that  my  name 
shall  chance  to  live  in  the  record  of  these  times,  I  long  since  appealed; 
and,  iiieuntime,  am  content  to  abide  the  scrutiny  which  must  precede  it. 
Without  further  personal  allusion,  therefore,  in  reply,  allow  me  to  pass 
to  another  subject;  and,  if  it  be  in  my  power,  thus  to  change  a  visit  of 
ceremony  into  one,  perhaps,  not  altogether  without  profit. 

You  are  students.  Some  of  you  still  pursue  your  classical  and  scien- 
tific studies  ;  others  prepare  yourselves  for  professional  pursuits  ;  all  of 
you  are  eager  to  rush  into  the  great  world,  and  be  men.  Yet  in  a  little 
"while,  when  vou  have  borne  its  buffetings  with  lusty  sinews,  not  one  of 
you  but  will  exclaim  with  a  sigh — ■ 

"Ah!  happy  years  I  once  more  who  would  not  be  a  boy  ?" 
But  in  the  battle  of  life  there  is  no  retreat;  and  the  brave  spirits 
among  you  will  press  forward,  and  the  weak  falter  and  perish.  You 
now  but  prepare  yourselves  for  a  life  of  action ;  and  just  in  proportion 
as  you  are  disciplined  every  way,  you  will  be  ready  to  meet  whatever 
fortune  may  betide  you.  "  Redeem  the  time."  No  injunction  is  more 
suggestive.  So  many  days  and  years  you  have  in  pawn  to  the  Almighty 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth ;  and  those  only  are  reckoned  redeemed, 
which  are  spent  profitably  to  either  the  body  or  the  mind.  Youth  is 
not  the  season  for  ease  or  pleasure ;  but  for  labor  and  self-denial. 
Whoever  lias  practised  these  hardy  virtues  when  a  boy,  and  in  early 
manhood,  will,  at  forty,  sound  in  mind  and  body,  find  the  lawful  and 
virtuous  pleasures  of  life  full  of  sweetness.     Horace  was  riofht : 

"  Malta  tulit  fecitque  puer." 

The  more  ingenuous  among  you  incur  another  and  widely  differing 

hazard.     You  have  endured  heat  and  cold ;  have  refrained  from  lust 

aud  wine;  have  abjured  pleasure.     Your  vigils  have  "  outwatched  the 

Bear."     But  youthful  ambition  is  eager  and  impatient.     It  sees  nothing 

*  On  the  14th  of  November  1863,  a  large  delegation  of  the  students  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,  at  Ann  Arbor  in  that  State,  paid  a  formal  visit  to  Mr.  Vallan- 
DiGHAM  at  Windsor.  They  were  received  in  the  dining-room  of  the  Hirons  House, 
■which  was  well  filled  by  a  select  audience,  embracing  many  of  the  leading  citizens 
of  Windsor  and  Detroit.  Mr.  C.  A.  Buskirk,  on  behalf  of  the  students,  delivered 
an  eloquent  address,  after  which  Mr.  Vallandigham  repUed  as  above. 


52.2  vallandigham's  speeches. 

but  Fame's  Prond  Temple,  and  for£:i'ts  that  it  shines  afar.  It  sees  not 
the  long  and  wearisome  Icao-ues  of  hill  and  valley,  of  forest  and  rock, 
of  thicket  and  jangle,  which  lie  between  the  goddess  and  her  younger 
worshippers.  It  counts  every  moment  of  delay  and  difficulty  on  the 
way,  as  a  moment  lost.  There  is,  indeed,  a  false  goddess  whose  fane  is 
near  and  easy  of  access.  Hard  by  is  the  altar  of  Mammon.  Fraud, 
Falsehood,  and  Violence  are  their  joint  sibyls  and  priests.  A  tumul- 
tuous crowd  of  idolatrous  and  abject  worshippers  throng  around.  But 
Notoriety  is  not  Fame,  and  her  devotees  soon  perish.  Not  such  let 
your  ambition  be ;  but  rather  that  which  Pope,  and  after  him,  Lord 
Mansfield,  proclaimed  "  the  pursuit  of  noble  ends  by  noble  means," 
and  yours,  too,  that  popularity  which  follows,  not  that  which  is  run 
after.  But  to  obtain  this  you  must  learn  early  that  most  difficult  of  all 
lessons — to  labor  and  to  wait.  At  twenty  you  think  forty  an  old 
age.  At  forty,  if  you  have  disciplined  your  minds  and  not  abused 
your  bodies,  you  will  find  yourselves  younger  but  far  wiser  than  you 
are  to-day  ;  and  the  hour  of  your  death  will  seem  more  distant  and  give 
you  less  concern.  You  will  feel  that  there  is  a  lifetime  yet  before  you  ; 
and  if  you  are  of  a  strong  will  and  brave  spirit,  and  worthy  of  a  name 
to  live,  your  past  failures  and  defeats  you  will  regard  then  as  but  pro- 
bation and  discipline,  and  indeed,  as  so  many  assurances  of  final  triumph. 
Press  on !  but  not  in  haste.  The  Master  of  Ravenswood  chose  a  wise 
motto  and  not  inapt  coat  of  arms — a  bull's  head,  and  "  I  bide  my 
time." 

In  one  other  thing  be  not  mistaken  :  you  are  not  about  to  finish 
your  studies.  When  you  take  leave  of  the  University  you  but  begin 
them.  No  man  ever  attained  great  and  enduring  eminence  without 
study — not  always  of  books.  Men  of  action  have  not  leisure  at  all 
times  for  books  ;  but  they  are  students,  nevertheless,  of  the  men  and 
things  around  them ;  and  books  are  but  the  written  records  of  things 
and  men  remote  or  of  the  past.  Yet  they  have  this  advantage,  that 
whatever  they  record  has  passed  through  the  alchemy  of  the  great 
minds  by  whom  they  were  written ;  and,  moreover,  in  them  we  study 
men  and  things  divested  of  the  prejudices,  the  bigotries,  and  the  self- 
interested  influences  of  that  which  is  present  in  time  or  near  in  space. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  history — the  most  amplifying,  liberalizing  in 
its  eft'ect  upon*  the  mind,  and  soul,  of  all'  studies.  He  who  remains  *a 
bigot  in  any  thing,  has  read  history  to  little  purpose  ;  and  he  who 
would  comprehend  the  present,  and  discern  the  future,  must  give  his 
days  and  nights  to  this  study.  Prophecy  uninspired  is  but  history 
anticipated.  Read  history,  and  learn  that  the  patriot,  the  hero,  the 
statesman,  the  orator,  whom  you  reverence  or  admire  in  the  pages  of 
Plutarch  and  Livy,  or  of  Hume,  Gibbon,  and  Macaulay,  was  reviled 


TO   THE    STUDENTS    OF   MICHIGAN   UNIVERSITY.       523 

and  persecuted  in  his  own  day,  and  suffered  death,  it  may  have  been,  at 
the  hands  of  the  men  of  his  own  generation.  Ponder,  too,  the  wisdom 
of  Moses,  who,  before  the  pleasures  and  honors  of  the  king's  court,  pre- 
ferred rather  the  Red  Sea  and  forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  and  death 
and  an  unknown  grave,  that  he  might  become  a  great  lawgiver,  and  the 
founder  of  a  new  religion  and  of  a  powerful  people. 

Most  of  you.  Young  Gentlemen,  have  read  the  usual  course  of 
"  ancient  classics."  It  is  the  fashion  of  our  times  to  decry  this  study. 
But  aside  from  the  perennial  pleasure,  through  life,  which  he  receives 
who  seeks  these  precious  fountains,  their  practical  value,  also,  will  not 
be  questioned  by  him  who  reflects  that  our  whole  language,  and 
especially  our  scientific  nomenclature,  is  largely  derived  from  the 
Greek  and  Latin,  and  that  our  entire  literature  is  pervaded  by  the 
spirit  of  these  classics,  and  full  of  quotations  and  allusions  drawn  from 
them.  Cicero's  magnificent  eulogy  upon  the  studies  which  Archias 
taught,  is  not  at  all  exaggerated  when  applied  to  the  Grecian  and 
Roman  writings  which  have  come  down  to  us.  If  the  modern  sculp- 
tor study  the  Apollo  Belvidere  and  the  Dying  Gladiator,  why  shall 
not  the  modern  student  study  the  language  of  the  men  who  chiselled 
these  wonderful  creations  out  from  the  solid  marble  ?  But  most  valu- 
able as  the  mere  discipline  may  be,  it  is  not  enough  that  you  content 
yourselves  with  the  usual  course  now  prescribed  in  school  or  college. 
These  writings  must  be  a  study,  more  or  less,  through  life.  Let  not 
any  say  that  he  has  "  no  time."  There  is  always  time  and  a  way  for 
whatever  a  strong-willed,  diligent  man  may  choose  to  undertake.  What 
is  most  wanted,  is  a  judicious  economy  of  time,  and  a  wise  division  of 
it  in  the  multiplicity  of  employments,  so  that  but  one  thing  shall  bft 
done  at  a  time. 

A  majority  of  you,  Young  Gentlemen,  are  preparing  yourselves  for 
professional  pursuits.  Whoever  would  become  a  Christian  clergy- 
man, let  him  preach  the  evangely  of  Bethlehem.  Let  him  confine 
himself  to  his  legitimate  duties,  and  aspire  to  be  the  most  faithful 
and  exemplary  of  the  men  of  his  calling. 

Whoever  would  practise  surgery  and  medicine,  let  his  ambition  be 
to  reach,  as  nearly  as  possible,  or  to  excel,  the  acquirements  and  skill 
of  the  great  men  who,  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  have  been  the 
ornaments  of  that  profession.  The  novum  organum  of  medicine 
remains  to  be  written,  and  he  who  is  to  write  it  has  not  yet  appeared. 
Why  should  he  not  be  an  American  ?  Why  not  adorn  the  University 
of  Michigan  ?. 

And  you.  Young  Gentlemen,  who  prepare  for  the  profession  of  the 
law,  will  have  a  nobler  theatre  to  act  in  than  any  who  have  gone  before 
you  in  the  United  States.     Out  of  the  terrible  revolution  which  now 


524  VALLANDIGH Ail's    SPEECHES. 

convulses  every  part  of  our  unhappy  land  will  arise  questions  of  constitu- 
tional and  statute  law,  of  personal  liberty,  or  private  right,  of  property,  of 
life,  ijraiidLM-,  more  numerous,  more  infinite  in  variety,  and  more  perplexing 
than  heretofore  in  any  age  or  country.  If  just  now,  "amid  arms,  laws 
are  silent,"  in  your  day,  at  least,  should  free  government  happily  in  any 
form  survive  among  us,  arras  will  again  yield  to  the  toga,  and  laws  reign 
supreme.  With  diligence,  therefore,  fixed  faith,  and  unalterable  pur- 
pose, prepare  yourselves  for  the  destiny  which  lies  before  yon ;  to  the 
end  that,  in  the  next  generation,  you  may  be  among  the  number  of. 
those  who,  upon  the  Bench  and  at  the  Bar,  shall  restore  and  bear  aloft 
to  hi'i'hcr  renown  the  alreadv  illustrious  standard  of  British  and 
American  forensic  learning  and  eloquence.  Cowardice  and  servility 
before  executive  power  were  the  disgrace  of  the  English  Bar  and 
Bench  in  the  days  of  the  Stuarts;  and  these,  threatening  now  the 
honor  and  the  independence  of  the  American  judiciary,  are  among  the 
most  alarming  portents  of  the  times. 

But  remember,  that  while  along  with  the  great  Hampden  the  name 
of  the  honest  and  fearless  Croke,  and  of  his  noble  wife,  still  survive  in 
honor,  the  tiuie-serving  and  unjust  judges  who  sat  with  him,  and  yielded 
to  political  expediency  and  "  military  necessity,"  have  perished  from 
history,  or  are  remembered  only  to  be  execrated.  The  blessed  memory 
of  Lord  Hale  is  still  fragrant;  while  the  name  of  the  bloody  Jeffries, 
who  escaped  death  upon  the  felon's  scaffold  only  by  dying  miserably 
in  a  felon's  cell,  is  the  opprobrium  of  the  English  Bench.  Algernon 
Sidney  died  as  a  convicted  traitor;  but  in  a  little  while  his  execution 
was  adjudged  judicial  murder;  and  posterity,  for  six  generations,  has 
held  him  in  reverence  as  a  patriot.  Finch,  King  James  the  Second's 
attorney-general,  procured  the  conviction  and  death  of  the  pure  and 
virtuous  Lord  Russell,  as  a  conspirator  against  the  government ;  but 
eight  years  afterwards,  when  he  would  have  relieved  himself  in  Par- 
liament from  the  odium  of  the  act,  the  indignant  clamor  of  the  whole 
House  forced  him,  in  shame  and  confusion,  to  resume  his  seat ;  and 
Russell  still  lives  in  England  and  America  as  a  martyr  to  liberty. 

Your  courage,  your  fortitude,  your  manhood,  will  also,  some  day, 
be  severely  tried.  But,  then,  remember  Curran,  whose  fame  bright- 
ens just  as  the  memory  of  the  venal  placemen  and  barristers  around 
him  rots  with  each  revolving  year,  and  who,  when  menaced  in  court  by 
a  file  of  soldiers,  clattering  their  muskets  as  he  addressed  the  jury  in 
defence  of  one  charged  with  treason,  exclaimed  in  manly  defiance : 
"  You  may  assassinate,  but  you  cannot  intimidate  me."  Read,  too,  the 
speeches,  and  admire  and  imitate  the  heroic  Erskine,  the  greatest  of 
Eno-lish  barristers,  who,  against  the  whole  power  of  the  Executive,  in 
time  of  both  foreign  war  and  rebellion,  maintained  for  years  the  rights 


« 


• 


TO   THE    STUDENTS    OF   MICHIGAN   UNIVERSITY.       525 

and  liberties  of  Englishmen,  with  undaunted  intrepidity.  Prepare  your- 
selves, by  continual  study  of  the  characters  and  noble  emulatioii  uf  the 
examples  of  these  and  other  great  and  good  men  of  tlie  past,  for  like 
scenes  in  your  own  day.  Nerve  your  hearts  now  for  the  struixgle  ;  but 
remember*  that  ability,  however  eminent,  and  intellectual  discipline, 
however  exact,  are  not  enough.  "Without  pure  morals,  correct  habits, 
and  fixed  integrity,  you  cannot  endure  the  trial.  Be  virtuous.  Be 
pious.  I  use  the  word  in  no  narrow,  sectarian,  or  theological  sense, 
but  in  that  which  Virgil  means  when  he  calls  JEneas  '■' pius'^ — a  piety 
■which  belongs  to  no  one  sect,  nor  clime,  nor  time,  nor  country,  but 
which  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  renders  to  God,  and  self,  and  man, 
■whatever  is  due,  and  does  it  in  the  very  spirit  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount. 

But,  Young  Gentlemen,  while  I  have  thus  addressed  you  as  students 
preparing  yourselves  for  the  ordinary  business  and  professions  of  life, 
I  well  know  that  at  any  time  many  of  you  would  be,  and  in  times  of 
such  tremendous  ira'port  as  just  now  are  upon  us  in  our  own  country,  all  of 
you  are,  profoundly  interested  in  politics.  Probably  you  give  to  them 
more  of  your  thoughts  than  to  any  of  your  collegiate  or  professional 
studies.  I  know,  too,  that  many  of  you,  even  now,  look  eagerly  for- 
■ward  to  the  time  when  you  will  pass  from  your  professions  into  political 
life.  Tliis  is  the  goal  of  your  ambitious  longings.  Your  hearts  are 
fixed  upon  it.  It  is  an  honorable,  a  holy  ambition  ;  an  ambition  not  to 
be  extinguished,  but  to  be  regnlated.  He  is  a  false  teacher  who  would 
tell  the  ingenuous,  virtuous,  and  public-spirited  youth  of  the  country 
that  the  political  service  of  the  country  is  fit  only  for  the  vulgar, 
the  impure,  the  corrupt.  As  there  are  hypocrites  in  the  pulpit, 
empirics  in  medicine,  pettifoggers  at  the  bar,  and  pretenders  every- 
■where,  so  there  are  demagogues  in  political  life.  But  there  is  as  well  a 
morality  as  a  philosophy,  a  science  in  politics,  far  above  the  circle  of 
these  reptiles.  Unhappily,  the  low  standard  of  capacity  and  morals 
set  up  and  denounced  by  those  who  decline  public  life,  and  practically 
but  too  ofteft  acknowledged  by  politicians,  is  another  of  the  evil  portents 
■which  impend  our  country.  Of  the  corrupting  influences  of  avarice,  at 
all  times,  I  need  not  speak.  But  more  debasing  and  dangerous  still,  in 
seasons  of  great  public  commotion,  is  the  execrable  vice  of  fear.  All 
these  combined,  make  up  that  most  loathsome  of  all  the  objects  of 
reproach  and  scorn,  "  a  scurvy  politician."  He  has  borne  the  same 
odious  character  in  every  country  and  age.  Among  the  Greeks,  he 
once  courted  popularity,  or  place,  by  pointing  out  the  smugglers  of 
figs,  and  was  cnrsed  as  both  spy  and  informer,  and  thence  gave  a  name 
to  the  whole  class  of  demagogues.  In  Rome,  he  headed  every  petty 
popular  tumult,  and  clamored  fiercely  for  a  division  of  lands  and  goods. 


526  vallakdigham's  speeches. 

Curran   described  him,  in  his  day,  in  felicitous  phrase,  as  "  one  who, 
buoyant  by  putrefaction,  rises  as  he  rots."     He  is  the  vermin,  the  in- 
sect of  politics,  and  amid  the  heats  of  civil  war  and  convulsion,  teems 
into  life  thick  as  gnats  in  the  summer  evening  air.     If  any  one  among 
you — and  I  speak  to  those  who  would  aspire  to  be  leaders  among  their 
countrymen — have   neither   the    capacity   nor   the    ambition    to  be  a 
statesman,  let  him  at  least  not  stoop  to  become  a  demarro<rue.    Preach, 
heal,  try  causes,  work ;  but  scorn  to  be  one  of  that  number  who  know 
nothing  of  politics   except  the  passions  and  personalities  which  they 
excite.     If  not  able   to  argue   upon  principles,  measures,  policies,  de- 
bate not  at  all.     If  you  cannot  soar,  do  not  creep.     Whoever  discusses 
only  men  in   politics,  is  always  largely  a  slanderer.      Principles,  not 
men,  is,  indeed,  not  altogether  a  sound  maxim,  though  little  liable  to  be 
abused,  since  personalities  always  make  up  so  large  and  controlling  an 
element  in  mere  partisan  politics.     Better  say,  principles  and  men.     It 
is  easy  to  be  a  politician  or  demagogue — sail  with  the  wind — float  with 
the  current — look  not  to  compass,  neither  lift  up  your  eves  to  the 
heavens    where  the  constellations  and  the  polestar — bright,    glorious 
emblems  of  God,  and  Truth,  and  the  Right — still  shine,  steadfast,  im- 
movable, just  as  they  shone  in  the  beginning  of  time.     Poeta  nascitur. 
So  it  is  with  the  demagogue.     But  the  statesman  must  be  made  as  well 
as  born.     His  voyage  is  through  mid-ocean  and  in  storm.     He  sails 
under  orders.     His  port  is  ascertained  and  prescribed  before  he  sets 
out,  and  it  is  his  duty   to  reach  it;  and  so,  like  the  majestic  ocean 
steamer,  he  moves  on,  and, 

"Against  the  wind,  against  the  tide 
Still  steadies  with  an  upright  keel!" 

Demosthenes,  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  in  his  great  ora 
tion  for  the  Crown,  well  distinguished  between  these  two  characters, 
declaring  that  while  they  were  alike  in  nothing,  they  differed  chiefly 
in  this :  that  the  statesman  boldly  and  honestly  proclaimed  his  opinion 
before  the  event,  and  thus  made  himself  responsible  to  fortune,  to  the 
times,  to  his  countrymen,  to  the  world ;  while  the  sycophant  or 
demagogue  was  silent  till  the  event  had  happened,  and  then  governed 
his  speech  and  his  conduct  accordingly. 

And  now  allow  me  to  add,  that  though  you  may  be  patriots  and  yet 
not  statesmen,  the  statesman  is  always  a  patriot.  His  love  of  country 
is  as  well  a  principle  as  an  emotion.  Duty  enters  largt-ly  into  it;  hence 
it  is  staV)le,  enduring.  It  is  not  sensational — certainly  not  a  mere  feel- 
ing of  gratitude,  least  of  all  in  the  meaning  of  that  word  as  defined  by 
Dr.  Johnson — "  a  lively  sense  of  favors  yet  to  be  received."  He  loves 
his  country  both  wisely  and  well.     He  never  sacrifices  her  re^'^'''  lit'h 


TO    THE    STUDENTS    OF   MICHIGAN   UNIVERSITY.      527 

more  remote  interests,  to  a  popular  clamor ;  and  still  less  at  the  demand 
of  those  who  hold  the  power.  Neitlier  will  he  corrupt  the  virtue,  nor 
tarnish  the  honor  of  his  country,  to  serve  her  mere  sordid  interests. 
Rather  will  he  imitate  the  example  of  Aristides,  who  reporting  to  the 
Athenians  that  a  certain  proposition  was  indeed  for  their  immediate  ad- 
vantage, but  would  bring  dishonor  upon  the  State,  counselled  that  they 
reject  it. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  "  loyalty."  It  is  a  word  that  belongs  just- 
ly, but  only,  to  kingly  governments.  I  can  comprehend  loyalty  to  a 
King,  and  especially  to  a  Queen :  but  as  an  American,  I  choose  to  ad- 
here to  the  good  and  honest  old  republican  word  "patriotism,"  and  to 
cherish  the  virtue  which  it  has  always  been  used  to  express. 

Aspire,  then,  Young  Gentlemen,  you  who  would  pursue  a  public 
course,  to  be  patriot-statesmen.  Have  faith — absolute,  unquestioning, 
immovable — that  faith  which  speaking  to  itself  in  the  silence  and  calm 
of  the  heart's  own  beating,  says  :  "  If  not  to-day,  or  this  time,  then  to- 
morrow, or  next  or  some  other  day,  at  some  other  time,  in  some  other 
■way,  all  will  be  well."  Without  this,  no  man  ever  achieved  greatness. 
Be  incorruptible  in  your  integrity;  be  scrupulous  and  exact  in  honor; 
be  inexorable  in  your  deliberate,  well-considered  purposes ;  be  appalled 
by  no  difficulties.  Amplify  your  minds,  but  still  more,  be  great  in  soul. 
It  is  this  which  shall  lift  you  up  high  above  the  earth,  and  assimilate  you 
to  that  which  is  divine.  Without  it,  you  will  but  creep  with  dusty, 
and  droiling,  and  wearied  wing.  Without  it,  think  not  to  endure  that 
cruel  and  crushing  weight  of  doing  and  suffering  which  he  must  bear, 
•who  faithfully  and  with  heroism,  at  any  time,  but  most  of  all  in  periods 
of  great  public  convulsion,  would  act  the  part  of  the  patriot-statesman. 


SPEECH    AFTER    HIS    RETURN   TO    OHIO. 

At  Hajnilton,  June   15,   1864. 

Men  of  Ohio  :  To-day  I  am  again  in  your  midst,  and  upon  the  soil 
of  my  native  State.  To-day  I  am  once  more  within  the  district  which 
for  ten  years  extended  to  me  the  highest  confidence,  and  three  times 
honored  me  as  its  Representative  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States. 
I  was  accused  of  no  crime  against  the  Constitution  or  laws,  and  guilty 
of  none.  But  whenever  and  wherever  thus  charged  upon  due  process 
of  law,  I  am  now  here  ready  ^o  answer,  before  any  civil  court  of  com- 
petent jurisdiction,  to  a  jury  of  my  countrymen;  and  meantime  to  give 
bail  in  any  sum  which  any  judge  or  court,  State  or  Federal,  may  affix; 
and  you,  the  hundred  and  eighty-six  thousand  Democrats  of  Ohio,  I 
offer  as  my  sureties.     Never  for  one  hour  have  I  remained  in  exile  be- 


528  VALLA:\DIGnAM's    SPEECHES. 

cause  T  recognised  any  obligation  of  obedience  to  the  unconstitutional 
and  arl)itraiy  edict.  Neither  did  personal  fear  ever  restrain  me.  And 
to-day  1  return  of  my  own  act  and  pleasure,  because  it  is  my  constitu- 
tional and  legal  right  to  return.  Only  by  an  exertion  of  arbitrary  power, 
itself  against  Constitution  and  law,  and  consummated  by  military  force, 
I  was  abducted  from  my  home  and  forced  into  banishment.  The  asser- 
tion or  insinuation  of  the  President,  that  I  was  arrested  because  laboring 
with  some  efiect  to  prevent  the  raising  of  troops  and  to  encourage  de- 
sertions from  the  army,  and  was  responsible  for  numerous  acts  of  resist- 
ance to  the  draft  and  to  the  arrest  of  deserters,  causing  "  assassination, 
maiming,  and  murder;"  or  that  at  any  time,  in  any  way,  I  had  disobeyed 
or  failed  to  counsel  obedience  to  lawful  authority,  or  even  to  tlie  sem- 
blance of  law,  is  absolutely  false.  I  appeal  for  the  proof  to  every  speech 
I  ever  made  upon  these  questions,  and  to  the  very  record  of  the  Mock 
Military  Commission,  by  the  trial  and  sentence  of  which  I  was  outraged. 
No ;  the  sole  offence  then  laid  to  my  charge  was  words  of  criticism  of 
the  public  policy  of  the  Administration,  addressed  to  an  open  and  pub- 
lic political  meeting  of  my  fellow-citizens  of  Ohio,  lawfully  and  peace- 
ably assembled.  And  to-day  my  only  "  crime"  is  that,  in  the  way 
which  they  call  treason,  worship  I  the  Constitution  of  my  fathers.  But, 
for  now  more  than  one  year,  no  public  man  has  been  arrested,  and  no 
newspaper  suppressed  within  the  States  adhering  still  to  the  Union,  for 
the  expression  of  political  opinion ;  while  hundreds,  in  public  assembly 
and  through  the  press,  have,  with  a  license  and  violence  in  which  I 
never  indulged,  criticised  and  condemned  the  acts  and  policies  of  the 
Administration,  and  denounced  the  war,  maintaining  even  the  propriety 
and  necessity  of  the  recognition  of  Southern  independence.  Indorsed 
by  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  freemen  of  the  Democratic  party  of 
my  native  State  at  the  late  election,  and  still  with  the  sympathy  and 
support  of  millions  more,  I  do  not  mean  any  longer  to  be  the  only  man 
of  that  party  who  is  to  be  the  victim  of  arbitrary  power.  If  Abraham 
Lincoln  seeks  my  life,  let  him  so  declare ;  but  he  shall  not  again  restrain 
me  of  my  personal  liberty  except  upon  "  due  process  of  law."  The 
unconstitutional  and  monstrous  "Order  38,"  under  which,  alone,  I  was 
arrested  thirteen  months  ago,  was  defied  and  spit  upon  at  your  State 
Convention  of  1863,  by  the  gallant  gentleman  who  bore  the  standard  as 
your  candidate  for  Lieutenant-Governor,  and  by  every  Democratic  press 
and  public  speaker  ever  since.  It  is  dead.  From  the  first  it  was 
against  the  Constitution  and  laws,  and  without  validity,  and  all  proceed- 
ings under  it  were  and  are  utterly  null,  void,  and  of  no  effect.  The 
indii!;nant  voice  of  condemnation  Ions:  since  went  forth  from  the  vast 
majority  of  the  people  and  presses  of  America,  and  from  all  free  coun- 
tries in  Europe,  with  entire  unanimity.     And  more  recently,  too,  the 


AFTER   HIS    EETUEI!f   TO    OHIO.  529 

"  platform"  of  an  earnest,  numerous,  and  most  formidable  convention  of 
the  sincere  Republicans,  and  still  further,  the  emphatic  letter  of  accept- 
ance by  the  candidate  of  that  convention,  General  John  C.  Frenlont — 
the  first  candidate,  also,  of  the  Republican  party  for  the  Presidency 
eight  years  ago,  upipn  the  rallying  cry  of  free  speech  and  a  free  press — 
give  renewed  hope  that,  at  last,  the  reign  of  arbitrary  power  is  about  to 
be  brought  to  an  end  in  the  United  States.  It  is  neither  just  nor  fit, 
therefore,  that  the  wrongs  inflicted  under  "  Order  38,"  and  the  other 
edicts  and  acts  of  such  power,  should  any  longer  be  endured — certainly 
not  by  me  alone.  But  every  ordinfvry  means  of  redress  has  first  been 
exhausted ;  yet  eith^*  by  the  direct  agency  of  the  Administration  and 
its  subordinates,  or  through  its  influence  or  intimidation,  or  because  of 
want  of  jurisdiction  in  the  civil  courts  to  meet  a  case  whicl^  no  Ameri- 
can ever  in  former  times  conceived  to  be  possible  here,  all  have  failed. 
Counsel  applied  in  my  behalf  to  an  unjust  judge  for  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus.  It  was  denied  ;  and  now  the  privilege  of  that  writ  is  suspended 
by  ^ct  of  Congress  and  Executive  order,  in  every  State.  The  Demo- 
cratic Convention  of  Ohio,  one  year  ago,  by  a  resohition  formally  pre- 
sented through  a  committee  of  your  best  and  ablest  men,  in  person  at 
Washington,  demanded  of  the  President,  in  behalf  of  a  very  large 
minority  of  the  people,  a  revocation  of  the  edict  of  banishment.  Pre- 
tending that  the  public  safety  then  required  it,  he  refused ;  saying  at 
the  same  time,  that  "it  would  aff'ord  him  pleasure  to  comply  as  soon  as 
he  could  by  any  means  be  made  to  believe  that  the  public  safety  would 
not  suflfer  by  it."  One  year  has  elapsed ;  yet  this  hollow  pretence  is 
tacitly  asserted,  and  to-day  I  am  here  to  prove  it  unfounded  in  fact.  I 
appealed  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  because 
Congress  had  never  conferred  jurisdiction  in  behalf  of  a  citizen  tried  by 
a  tribunal  unknown  for  such  purposes,  to  the  laws  and  expressly  for- 
bidden by  the  Constitution,  it  was  powerless  to  redress  the  wrong. 
The  time  has,  therefore,  arrived  when  it  becomes  me  as  a  citizen  of 
Ohio  and  of  the  United  States,  to  demand,  and  by  my  own  act  to  vin- 
dicate the  rights,  liberties,  and  privileges  which  I  never  forfeited,  but  of 
which  for  so  many  months  I  have  been  deprived.  Wherefore,  men  of 
Ohio,  I  am  again  in  your  midst  to-day.  I  owe  duties  to  the  State,  and 
am  here  to  discharge  them ;  I  have  rights  as  a  citizen,  and  am  here  to 
assert  them  ;  a  wife,  and  child,  and  home,  and  would  enjoy  all  the 
pleasures  which  are  im.plied  in  those  cherished  words.  But  I  am  here 
for  peace,  not  turbulence  ;  for  quiet,  not  convulsion  ;  for  order  and  law, 
not  anarchy.  Let  no  man  of  the  Democratic  party  begin  any  act  of 
violence  or  disorder ;  but  let  none  shrink  from  any  responsibility,  how- 
ever urgent,  if  forced  upon  him.  Careful  of  the  rights  of  others,  let 
him  see  to  it  that  he  fully  and  "earlessly  exacts  his  own.  Subject  to 
34 


530  valla::diCtHam's  speeches. 

rightfal  anthority  in  all  tilings,  let  him  submit  to  excess  or  usurpation 
in  nothing.  Obedient  to  Constitution  and  law,  let  him  demand  and 
have  the  full  measure  of  protection  which  law  and  Constitution  secure 
to  him. 

Men  of  Ohio  I  You  have  already  vindicated  your  right  to  hear  :  it 
is  now  my  duty  to  assert  my  right  to  s/xak.  Wherefore,  as  to  the  sole 
oflfence  for  which  I  was  arrested,  imprisoned,  and  banished — free  speech 
in  criticism  and  condeaination  of  the  Administration ;  an  Administration 
fitly  described  in  a  recent  public  paper  by  one  of  its  early  supporters  as 
"  marked  at  home  by  disregard  of  constitutional  rights,  by  its  violations 
of  personal  liberty  and  the  liberty  of  the  press,  and,  as  itS  crowning 
shame,  by  its  abandonment  of  the  right  of  asylum,  a  right  especially 
dear  to  all  free  nations  abroad."  I  repeat  it  here  to-day,  and  will  again 
and  yet  again,  so  long  as  I  live,  or  the  Constitution  and  our  present 
form  of  government  shall  survive.  The  words  then  spoken  and  the 
appeal  at  that  time  made,  and  now  enforced  by  one  year  more  of  taxa- 
tion and  debt,  and  of  blood  and  disaster,  entreating  the  people  to  change 
the  public  servants  and  their  policy,  not  by  force,  but  peaceably,  through 
the  ballot,  I  now  and  here  reiterate  in  their  utmost  extent,  and  with  all 
their  significanoy,  I  repeat  them,  one  and  all,  in  no  spirit  of  challenge 
or  bravado,  but  as  earnest,  sober,  solemn  truth  and  warning  to  the 
people. 

Upon  another  subject  allow  me  here  a  word : 

A  powerful,  widely-spread,  and  very  dangerous  secret,  oath-bound 
combination  amonof  the  friends  of  the  Administration,  known  as  the 
"  Loyal  Union  League,"  exists  in  every  State.  Yet  the  very  men  who 
control  it  charge  persistently  upon  the  members  of  the  Democratic 
party,  that  they  have  organized — especially  in  the  Northwest — the 
"  Order  of  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,"  or  some  other  secret  society, 
treasonable  or  "  disloyal"  in  its  character,  affiliated  with  the  South,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  armed  resistance  to  the  authorities  of  the  Federal  and 
State  Government.  Whether  any  such  ever  existed,  I  do  not  know ; 
but  the  charge  that  organizations  of  that  sort,  or  having  any  such  pur- 
pose, do  now  exist  among  members  of  that  party  in  Ohio  or  other  non- 
slaveholding  States,  is  totally  and  positively  false.  That  lawful  political 
or  party  associations  have  been  established,  having  as  their  object  the 
organizing  and  strengthening  of  the  Democratic  party  and  its  success  in 
the  coming  Presidential  election,  and  designed  as  a  counter-movement 
to  the  so-called  "  Union  Leagues,"  and,  therefore,  secret  in  their  pro- 
ceedings, is  very  probable ;  and  however  objectionable  hitherto,  and  in 
ordinary  times,  I  recognize,  to  the  fullest  extent,  not  the  lawfulness  only, 
but  the  propriety  and  necessity  of  such  organizations  now,  for  "  when 
bad  men  combine,  good  men  must  associate."     But  they  are  no  con- 


ATTEB   HIS   EETUE^s"   TO    OHIO.  531 

spiracy  aeainst  the  Government,  and  their  members  are  not  conspirators, 
but  patriots ;  men  not  leagued  together  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Con- 
stitution or  the  laws,  and  still  less,  of  liberty,  but  firmly  united  for  the 
preservation  and  support  of  these  great  objects.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
"  conspiracy"  very  powerful,  very  ancient,  and  I  trust  that  before  long  I 
may  add,  strongly  consohdated  also,  upon  sound  principles,  and  destined 
yet  to  be  triumphant — a  conspiracy  known  as  the  Democratic  party, 
the  present  object  of  which  is  the  overthrow  of  the  Administration  in 
November  next,  not  by  force  but. through  the  ballot-box,  and  the 
election  of  a  President  who  shall  be  true  to  his  oath,  to  Liberty,  and  to 
the  Constitution.  This  is  the  sole  conspiracy  of  which  I  know  any 
thing ;  and  I  am  proud  to  be  one  of  the  conspirators.  If  any  other 
exist,  lootinor  to  unlawful  armed  resistance  to  the  Federal  or  State 
authorities  anvwhere,  in  the  exercise  of  their  legal  and  constitutional 
rights,  I  admonish  all  persons  concerned,  that  the  act  is  treason  and  the 
penaltv  death.  But  I  warn  also  the  men  in  power,  that  there  is  a  vast 
multitude,  a  host  whom  they  cannot  number,  bound  together  by  the 
strongest  and  holiest  ties,  to  defend,  by  whatever  means  the  exigencies 
of  the  times  shall  demand,  their  natural  and  constitutional  rights  as 
freemen,  at  all  hazards  and  to  the  last  extremity. 

Three  years  have  now  passed.  Men  of  Ohio,  and  the  great  issue  of 
Constitutional  Liberty  and  Free  Popular  Government  is  still  before  yoo- 
To  you  I  again  commit  it,  confident  that  in  this  the  time  of  their  great- 
est peril,  you  will  be  found  worthy  of  the  ancestors,  who  for  so  many 
acres  in  England  and  America,  on  the  field,  in  prison,  and  upon  the 
scaffold,  defended  them  against  tyrants  and  usurpers  whether  in  council 
or  in  arms. 


SUPPLEMENT. 


"Ah  enthusiasm  can  be  evoked  from  the  hearts  of  the  people  before  which  all  * 

opposition  will  be  swept  away  as  hj  a  consuming  &ie."— Letter  to  Sanderson,  of 
Pennsylvania. 


SUPPLEMENT. 


In  this  StTPPLEMENT  will  be  found  extracts  from  Speeches,  Letters,  &c.,  not 
deemed  of  sufBcient  importance  to  be  included  at  length  in  the  body  of  the  book. 
These  extracts  are  inserted  here,  not  because  of  any  especial  excellency  in  style 
or  originality  of  thought,  but  as  giving  a  fuller  and  clearer  insight  into  Mr.  Val- 
landigham's  political  and  personal  sentiments  and  character,  than  any  mere  nar- 
rative could  express. 


• 


THE    BENEVOLENT   INSTITUTIONS    OF   THE    STATE. 

Extract  froiya  Speech  (Mr.  V.'s  first)  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Eepresentatives,  December  8, 
1845.    The  speech  was  noticed  thus  in  the  editorial  correspondence  of  the  Lancaster,  0.,  Eagle: 

"The  youngest  Democr.atic  member  in  the  House,  Mr.  Valllandigiiam,  made  his  debut  to- 
day, on  a  resolution  to  print  documents.  It  was  a  brilliant  effort,  and  produced  an  electric  effect 
upon  the  House.    He  is  a  splendid  young  man." 

If  there  be  any  one  thing  more  than  another,  to  which  the  citizens  of  Ohio  may 
point  with  proud  and  generous  exultation,  it  is  to  her  public  asylums,  to  her  com- 
mon schools,  to  her  state  prison,  by  which  she  has  acquired  so  lofty  and  honorable 
a  pre-eminence  among  her  sisters  of  the  confederacy.  Not  the  soil  of  Ohio,  not 
her  climate,  not  the  extent  of  her  territory,  nor  the  multiplied  variety  of  her  pro- 
ductions; not  even  the  majestic  river,  which  washes  her  base  ;  not  the  multitude 
of  her  teeming  population,  nor  her  wealth,  nor  her  resources,  nor  her  rapid 
growth,  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  States,  challenging  the  wonder  of  the 
world,  and  realizing  the  magic  creations  of  the  lamp  in  Oriental  fable ;  not  any 
thing  in  her  whole  history  and  character,  has  contributed  one-half  so  much  to 
elicit  the  eulogy  and  admiration  of  the  intelligent  and  enlightened  of  Europe  and 
America,  as  the  asylums,  and  other  public  institutions,  which  the  generous  benevo- 
lence of  the  people  of  Ohio,  has  consecrated  to  the  relief  and  solace  of  those, 
whom,  otherwise,  the  misfortune  of  birth,  or  the  accidents  of  life,  must  have  con- 
signed to  hopeless  despair.  For  my  own  pa.-t,  sir,  I  never  turn  my  eyes  or  direct 
my  thoughts  toward  these  buildings — these  living  monuments  of  a  lofty  and  sub- 
stantial charity — and  to  our  common  scnoois,  without  the  warm  feelings  of  a 
heart — patriotic,  I  trust — swelling  unconsciously  in  my  bosom,  and  breaking  from 
my  lips,  though  in  solitude,  in  audible  accents,  "I  am  a  citizen  of  Ohio." 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  mean,  upon  this  or  upon  any  occasion,  to  indulge  on  this  floor, 
in  mere  school-boy  declamation.  I  desire,  now  and  always,  to  speak  in  language  be- 
coming the  representative,  in  part,  of  this  great  people.  But  be  assured,  be  assured 
that  these  are  the  institutions  which  constitute  the  true  glory  and  greatness  of  a 


536  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

State.  Be  assured,  that  when  banks  and  tariffs,  and  all  the  other  .fleeting  topics 
of  the  d.iy  we  live  in,  shall  have  descended  to  the  oblivion  which  awaits  them 
alike — when  your  Senate  chambers,  your  halls  of  justice,  and  your  monuments 
Ehall  have  bowed  themselves  to  the  dust;  when  you  and  I,  Mr.  Speaker,  shall 
"sleep  in  dull,  cold  marble;"  nay,  when,  after  the  lapse  of  some  centuries,  this 
Union  shall  have  been  dissolved,  our  political  institutions  decayed,  their  vital 
spirit  yielded  up,  our  greatness  all  gone,  and  even  our  language  ceased  to  fall  from 
living  Hps — be  assured,  sir,  that  the  future  historian  of  Ohio,  writing  her  history 
in  a  tongue  as  yet  unformed,  will  record,  as  foremost  and  proudest  among  her 
glories,  these  very  institutions,  which,  with  great  humbleness,  yet  in  all  singleness 
of  heart,  I  have  thus  eulogj^ed.  , 


PATIENCE,    FIR31XESS,    AND    FAITH. 

Extract  from  remarks  on  the  Bank  Bill,  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Kepresentatives, 

December  30, 1845. 

I  KNOW,  ilr.  Staeaker,  it  is  easy — very  easy — to  answer  all  this  with  ridicule, 
and,  it  may  be,  wli  sarcasm  and  sneer.  My  venerable  friend  from  Belmont  (Mr. 
Cowen),  may  find  a  ready  occasion,  and  may  readily  embrace  it,  to  open  the  masked 
battery  of  his  wit,  upon  the  doctrines  I  have  uttered,  and,  perhaps,  upon  me  per- 
sonally. I  shall  not  complain.  His  wit  is  Attic,  and  it  is  always  co^eous.  But 
wit  is  not  argument,  though  it  be  the  weapon  with  which  all  great  reforms,  and  all 
great  but  new  truths,  have  in  all  ages  been  attacked.  True,  bigots  have,  in  other, 
times,  gone  forther.  The  rack  and  the  prison-house  have  been  called  into  requi- 
sition. If  I  recollect  history  aright,  when  Galileo  first  taught,  in  an  age  of  super- 
stition and  ignorance,  that  the  earth  revolved  round  the  sun — not  the  sun  round 
the  earth,  men's  minds  were  shocked  at  his  presumption  and  his  blasphemy;  and 
both  church  and  State — both  magistrate  and  ecclesiastic,  conspired  to  cast  him 
into  prison.  But  looking  calmly  through  the  bars  of  his  dungeon,  and  smiling  at 
his  persecutors,  this  great  hero  of  science  could  exclaim :  "  You  have  thrust  me 
into  prison,  but  still  the  earth  goes  round."  Sir,  the  same  spirit  of  opposition— of 
ridicule  and  persecution — has  fought,  though  not  prevailed,  against  every  other 
great  truth,  when  first  put  forth  to  the  world.  And  the  present  age  and  genera- 
tion are  not  less  slow  of  belief  in  such  truths,  than  the  generations  and  ages  which 
have  gone  before  us.  If  any,  however,  of  my  friends  of  the  majority,  or  any,  per- 
chance, of  the  minority,  are  not  yet  prepared  to  agree  with  me  upon  this  great 
question,  it  is  their  right,  under  our  institutions  and  laws,  to  entertain  and  express 
whatever  opinion  they  may  choose  to  express  or  to  entertain.  But  they  will  re- 
member, that  the  same  great  right  belongs  to  me  also.  Sir,  I  shall  seek  no  occa- 
sion of  quarrel  with  any  of  them,  or  with  any  man,  for  an  honest  difference  ol 
beUef,  however  erroneous  or  absurd,  or  fanatical,  his  opinions  may  be.  Standing 
upon  the  vantage  ground  of  truth,  we  who  hold  to  these  doctrhies,  shall  wail 
calmly,  and  wait  firmly — we  may  wait  long — tiU  the  steady  progression  of  the  age, 
and  of  public  opinion,  shall  have  come  up. 

Mr.  Thomas  felt  inclined  to  congratulate  himself  upon  having  heard  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Democratic  party  frankly  and  candidly  avowed,  from  the  lips  of  the 
gentleman  who  had  been  styled  the  leader  of  that  party  by  its  accredited  organ. 

Mr.  Vallandigham. — The  gentleman  from  Shelby  (Mr.  Thomas),  and  his  friends 
with  him,  are  fully  welcome  to  the  entire  benefit  of  any  thing  which  may  have 


SUPPLEMENT.  537 

fallen  from  me.  I  have  never  sought  concealment,  either  upon  this  question  or 
upon  any  other.  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  truth — I  dare  speak  it  openly.  It  may  be 
unpopular:  it  maybe  in  advance  of  the  age — it  is  none  the  less  truth,  and  I  am 
not  therefore,  the  more  afraid  to  proclaim  it.  But  I  spoke  for  myself  only,  and 
undertook  not  to  bind  any  man  by  my  declarations.  I  spoke,  also,  the  sentiments, 
as  I  believe,  of  the  people  of  Columbiana.  We  study  no  concealment  there.  My 
own  sentiments  were  openly  proclaimed  through  the  public  press,  and  in  the  pop- 
ular assemblages ;  and  that  also,  as  well  before  the  late  election,  as  at  other  times. 
I  pledged  myself,  voluntarily,  to  vote  for  "  the  total,  immediate,  and  unconditional 
repeal"  of  the  banking  law  of  the  last  session.  Yet  was  I  elected  almost  without 
opposition.  The  gentleman  from  Shelby  is  also  equally  welcome  to  my  individual 
sentiments  upon  any  subject  connected  with  politics,  or,  if  he  desire  it,  upon  any 
other  subject — upon  the  tai-iff — upon  a  constitutional  treasury — upon  Texas,  or 
upon  Oregon.  Confiding  fully  in  the  honesty  and  intelligence  of  the  people,  and 
in  the  power  of  truth,  I  have  nothing  to  conceal. 

Mr.  HiGfiiKS  would  inform  the  gentleman  from  Shelby  (Mr.  Thomas),  that  the 
Democratic  side  of  the  House  acknowledged  no  leaders. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  disclaimed  all  aspirations  for  any  thing  like  leadership. 
iTothing  could  be  further  from  his  expectations,  humbly  indulged  in,  than  to  find 
himself  elevated  into  a  jDositioa  to  lead  the  great  Democratic  party  of  Ohio.  It 
was  no  part  of  his  ambition,  and  he  had  neither  the  capacity  nor  the  inclination  to 
undertake  it. 


RETRENCHMENT.       SALARIES. 


Bemarks  on  the  proposed  repeal  of  the  "Eetrenchment  Act,"  in  the  Ohio  House  of 

Eepresentatives,  January  3,  lSi6. 

I  FURTHER  object  to  the  act  which  it  is  proposed  to  repeal,  because  it  fixes  the 
salary  or  compensation  of  many  officers  entirely  too  low.  It  is  impossible  in  the 
long  run,  to  secure  good  and  competent  men  to  fill  offices  of  responsibility,  at  the 
present  rate  of  compensation.  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  and  men  will  not 
undergo  great  labor  without  a  reasonable  recompense.  It  is  true,  so  far  as  concerns 
members  of  the  Legislature,  that  the  rich  who  may  desire  to  spend  a  winter  amid 
the  dissipation  and  gayety  of  the  State  capital,  or  to  secure  the  passage  of  some 
favorite  measure  for  their  own  special  benefit,  can  well  aflbrd  to  come  here  at  two 
dollars  a  day.  So  the  mere  idler  or  "loafer"  whose  ambition  rises  no  higher 
than  the  payment  of  his  board,  can  come  profitably  at  the  same  price.  But  few 
men  with  families  and  occupations,  can  be  found  able  or  willing  to  leave  them,  and 
undergo  the  inconveniences  qf  absence  and  the  fatigues  of  public  business,  for  a 
compensation  which,  with  the  strictest  economy,  enables  them  to  meet  their  ex- 
penses. Sir,  the  "Retrenchment  Act,"  as  it  stands,  is  a  virtual  disfranchisement 
to  poverty,  as  to  nearly  all  offices.  It  is  but  an  insidious  and  indirect  property  * 
qualification,  against  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution — a  qualification  which  the  spirit 
of  the  age  is  fast  exploding  all  over  the  Union,  and  which  ought  not,  in  a  Demo- 
cratic government,  to  be  tolerated  in  any  shape.  It  is  opposed  to  the  fundamental 
idea  of  our  institutions,  and  equally  odious  whether  it  exists  in  the  old-fashioned 
way  of  a  direct  requirement  of  so  much  property,  or  in  the  more  modern  way  of  a 
beggarly  salary. 

It  has  indeed  been  said  that  there  is  no  lack  of  office-seekers  or  office-holders 
since  the  act  passed.     That  may  be  true,  sir.     Patriots  of  a  certain  kind,  are  always 


538  vallandigham's  speeches. 

and  everywhere  abundant.  Our  case  would  be  hard,  indeed,  If  it  were  not  so. 
Some  men  will  take  office  at  any  price;  and  such  men  are  always  sure  to  enrich 
themselves  by  larceny  or  peculation.  But  the  question  is,  how  much  better  men 
could  you  not  have,  if  you  provided  a  compensation  which  would  justify  the  best 
men  in  accepting  official  stations  without  too  great  a  personal  sacrifice.  No  office 
ought  to  be  sought  after  for  the  purpose  of  making  money  by  it ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  every  ofiBce  ought  to  yield  enough  to  pay  its  incumbent  for  the  labor  and  re- 
sponsibility connected  with  it.  If  what  a  man  can  earn  a  day,  at  his  trade  or 
business,  is  to  be  the  criterion  of  official  compensation,  then  the  standard  should 
be  brought  down  to  the  lowest  degree — to  the  pay  of  a  day-laborer— yi/i!y  cents. 
This  would  be,a  scale  of  salary  very  convenient,  very  easy  of  application,  and  cer- 
tainly as  just  as  the  other:  %nd  the  legislature,  carrying  out  the  principle,  ought 
then  to  forbid  every  mechanic,  farmer,  and  workman  of  every  kind,  to  receive 
more.  •  But  the  principle,  sir,  is  all  wrong.  No  two  men  in  the  same  trade  can 
make  the  same  amount,  so  that  this  can  afford  no  fixed  or  just  rule  upon  the  sub- 
ject. 

I  hold,  sir,  that  every  public  servant  is  entitled  to  a  compensation  in  proportion 
to  the  amount  of  labor  and  service  which  he  renders:  and  to  a  fair  and  generous 
compensation.  Repubhcs,  especially,  where  there  is  little  hereditary  wealth,  and 
every  man  depends  upon  his  own  exertions,  ought  not  to  be  niggardly.  Officers 
are  public  servants,  not  rulers,  as  in  former  times,  or  in  other  countries,  and  ought 
to  have,  like  other  servants,  a  reasonable  and  sufficient  recompense  for  their  ser- 
vices ;  though  no  man  ought  to  be  allowed  to  grow  rich  from  the  money  of  the 
people. 

There  is  one  point,  sir,  and  a  very  material  one,  which  I  omitted  when  I  ad- 
dressed the  House  last.  The  ostensible  object  of  the  act  of  1844 — the  object  which 
was  then  held  out  as  a  blind  to  the  eyes  of  the  people,  and  the  only,  at  least  the 
chief  a/'gument,  now  urged  against  its  repeal,  was  and  is  that  taxation  may  bo 
lessened  and  money  put  into  the  public  treasury.  Well,  sir,  the  law  has  been  in 
operation  two  years;  it  has  been  fairly  tested,  and  what  is  the  result?  By  its 
second  section  it  is  provided,  by  the  most  pitiful  refinement  of  economy  which  ever 
disgraced  the  pubhc  records  of  any  state,  that  at  the  close  of  each  session  of  the 
General  Assembly,  the  sergeant-at-arms  shall  gather  up  the  fragments  of  every 
kind,  and  expose  them  to  sale.  This  elevated  duty  was  afterwards  devolved  upon 
the  Secretary  of  State.  Wei),  sir,  that  duty  has  been  performed  to  the  very  letter. 
And  what,  think  you,  was  the  result  of  this  wonderful  sale — this  most  extraordi- 
nary auction?  Your  Secretary  of  Slate — the  Secretary  of  the  great  commonwealth 
of  Ohio — the  third  in  this  grand  American  Republic — after  raking  and  scraping 
and  nosing  in  the  dust  and  sweepings  and  spittle  of  this  honorable  body,  gathers 
together  the  candle  ends,  and  waste  paper,  and  broken  snuffers  and  candlesticks 
which  he  has  smelled  out  and  rescued  from  the  rubbish,  and  exposes  them  at  pub- 
lic auction  in  order  that  the  coffers  of  the  impoverished  State  of  Ohio  may  be 
%nriched.  And  what  does  he  realize  ?  Six  dollars  and  seventy-two  cents!  Yes, the 
magnitudinous  sum  of  six  dollars  and  seventy-two  cents!  There  is  no  denying  it: 
the  report  of  the  Secretary  is  upon  our  tables,  and  not  contradicted.  Truly,  sir,  we 
are  growing  rich:  there  is  a  plethora  in  the  pubhc  treasury ;  the  buildings  must  be 
enlarged.  I  shall,  I  think  I  shall  introduce  a  bill  for  the  distribution  of  the  sur- 
plus revenue ;  certainly,  at  least  a  bill  providing  that  tlie  proceeds  of  this  great 
annual  auction  be  set  apart  as  a  sinking  fund  to  discharge  the  public  debt.  But 
seriously,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  this  be  not,  as  I  have  styled  it,  the  economy  of  meanness. 
I  beg  to  know  in  what  meanness  consists.        *        »        * 


SUPPLEMEl^T.  539 

I  have  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  given  briefly  the  reasons  which  govern  my  judgment 
as  to  the  vote  I  am  about  to  give.  I  am  fully  awake,  sir,  to  the  use  fvhich  may  be 
made  of  it.  Tlie  cry  of  "  retrenchment  and  reform,"  has  in  all  ages  been  perverted 
to  the  basest  purposes.  But  I  have  a  deep  and  abiding  confidence  in  the  honesty 
and  intelligence  of  the  people,  and  I  mean  now,  and  upon  aU  occasions,  here  and 
elsewhere,  to  demonstrate  the  sincerity  of  my  professions.  Sir,  I  come  not  here 
with  confidence  on  my  lips  and  distrust  in  my  heart.  My  convictions  of  the  utter 
inequity,  and  the  worthlessness,  as  to  its  ostensible  object,  of  the  act  now  pro- 
posed to  be  repealed,  are  deep  and  unalterable.  The  almost  universal  admission 
upon  this  floor,  that  the  character  of  the  act  is  just  what  I  have  described  it,  has 
greatly  strengthened  these  convictions.  The  case  seems  to  me  plain ;  and  I  do 
believe  that  the  people  have  as  much  capacity  to  perceive  it  as  I  have,  and  honesty 
enough  to  concur  in  the  repeal  of  such  an  act.  Entertaining  these  opinions,  and 
-believing  that  I  am  about  to  do  right,  I  enter  fearlessly  upon  the  discharge  of  my 
duty,  satisfied  to  abide  the  judgment  of  a  constituency  I  am  proud  to  represent. 
If  that  judgment  be  against  me,  I  shall  be  content ;  having  still  within  my  own 
bosom,  the  consohng  consciousness  that  I  dared  to  do  what  appeared  to  me  to  be 
^  just. 

LEGISLATION ITS    MYSTERIES. 

Kstract  from  Kemarks  on  a  motion  to  adjourn  sine  die,  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives, 

January  28, 1846. 

I  AM  aware,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  motions  for  adjournment  at  an  early  day  are,  not 
unfrequently,  a  very  small  way  of  manufacturing  a  very  small  capital.  Such,  how- 
ever, I  am  satisfied  is  not  the  object  of  the  mover  of  this  resolution — such  shall 
not  be  my  object  in  voting  for  its  passage.  I  mean  to  vote  for  it,  because  I  am 
sincerely  desirous  that  this  House  should  adjourn  at  the  time  proposed.  I  came 
here,  in  part,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  see,  in  the  words  of  a  celebrated  chancellor  of  Swe- 
den, "  with  how  little  wisdom  the  world  is  governed."  WeU,  sir,  I  have  seen  it — 
have  looked  the  business  of  legislation  over — have  pryed  somewhat  into  its  mys- 
teries, as  exhibited  in  this  Legislature — have  had  enough  to  satisfy  me  for  the 
present,  and  am  ready  now  to  return  home.  It  is  true  that  as  to  some  things,  I 
have  not  been  able  to  see  exactly  huw  they  were  done.  That  perhaps  was  my  own 
fault,  in  not  keeping  a  sufficiently  sharp  look-out,  and  because  I  have  not  been 
fortunate  enough  to  have  obtained  admission  into  the  "caucus."  No  matter.  I 
may  see  further  into  it  the  next  tune. 


SEPULTURE. CEMETERIES. 


Extract  from  Eemarks  on  the  Bill  "  to  Secure  the  Inviolability  of  Places  of  Human  Sepulture," 
in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives,  February  11, 1846. 

This  bill,  sir,  merits  a  difierent  treatment  at  the  hands  of  honorable  gentlemen. 
The  feelings  in  which  it  originates  are  implanted  in  us  by  nature  herself,  and  it  is 
vain  for  us  to  undertake  to  disregard  them.  They  have  been  recognized,  honored, 
and  obeyed  in  all  ages,  because  they  spring  up  from  the  human  heart  in  its  purest 
state.  There  is  no  man,  however  humble  his  condition  or  whatever  his  religious 
belief,  who  does  not  attach  some  sanctity  to  the  dead,  and  desire  that  after  his  hfe 
shall  have  terminated,  some  tribute  of  respect  be  paid  to  his  remains.  This  is  an 
aspiration,  an  impulse  so  natural,  that  no  degradation,  be  it  ever  so  low,  can  oblit- 


540  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

erate  it  from  our  hearts.  Even  the  most  friendless  and  forsaken,  dying  alone,  a 
stranger  in  a  strange  land,  without  a  friend  to  perform,  in  his  dying  moments,  the 
last  sad  offices  of  afTeetion,  desires  that  his  body  at  least  be  suflered  quietly  and 
decently  to  rest  in  its  grave.  And  this  is  a  feeling  which  has  dominion  much  more 
over  the  friends  and  relatives  of  the  dead,  where  the  dead  have  been  so  fortunate 
as  to  h:ivo  loft  relatives  and  friends  behind  them.  It  is  this  self-Same  feeling  which 
in  all  times  has  reared  the  splendid  mausoleum  of  the  king,  and  planted  the  simple 
rose-bush  over  the  humble  grave  of  the  peasant.  There  is  no  nation,  however 
barbarous,  but  has  some  funereal  monuments;  atd  the  rites  and  the  sanctity  of 
sepulture  are  among  all,  no  matter  what  their  religion,  held  in  the  highest  regard. 
The  Mussulmen  have  their  cemeteries,  spacious  and  costly,  and  called  beautifully 
and  expressively  in  their  language,  "  Cities  of  Silence."  Even  the  simple  Indian 
savages  of  our  continent  have  their  memorials,  rude  indeed,  but  still  memorials  of 
the  burying-places  of  their  fathers.  All  this  springs  from  our  innate  feeling  of  ven- 
eration and  care  for  the  dead ;  for  those  who  have  passed  into  that  "  undiscovered 
country  from  whose  bourne  no  traveller  returns"-^a  feeling  founded  in  the  con- 
sciousness we  all  possess  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  But  whether  the  soul  be 
immortal,  or  suffer  annihilation  at  death,  there  exists,  and  has  existed  in  all  times,  ^ 
and  among  all  men,  an  instinctive  desire  that  the  body  be  cared  for  and  guarded, 
even  though  it  be  no  longer  any  more  tlian  cold,  unanimated  clay,  resolved  again 
to  its  original  elements.  And  even  the  place  of  one's  burial  has  in  every  age  been 
a  matter  of  anxious  solicitude  with  the  dying.  Who  that  is  familiar  with  that  ear- 
liest and  best  of  books,  coming  down  to  us  hallowed  by  every  sanction  of  antiquity, 
full  of  the  simple  narrative  of  the  patriarchal  ages  and  fresh  with  the  spirit  of  a 
newly-created  world,  but  remembers  that  the  first  purchase  of  land  upon  record, 
was  of  the  cave  of  Machpelah  for  a  burying-place,  where  Abraham  was  buried  a«d 
Sarah  his  wife?  "Who  has  not  read  the  last  dying  aspiration  of  another  of  the  He- 
brew patriarchs,  who,  calling  his  chosen  son  to  his  side,  prayed  him  with  the  sim- 
ple patlios  of  expiring  old  age,  "  Deal  kindly  and  truly  with  me ;  bury  me  not  m 
Egypt,  I  pray  thee ;  but  I  iviU  lie  ivith  my  fathers ;  and  thou  shalt  carry  me  out  of 
Egypt."  And  who  does  not  know  how  religiously  the  injunction  was  obej'ed; 
and  that  four  hundred  years  afterwards  the  bones  of  the  son,  also,  were  carried  up 
from  the  land  where  first  buried,  and  deposited  in  the  sepulchre  of  the  patriarchs. 
Sir,  it  is  vain  to  war  against  these  feelings.  Nature  will  assert  her  mastery. 
They  are  too  deeply  implanted  and  too  universal  to  be  despised  in  American  legis- 
lation. Even  in  those  countries  where  the  dead  were  burned,  the  ashes  were  pre- 
served and  handed  down  in  costly  urns,  as  a  sacred  legacy  to  their  children.  And 
superstition  lent  its  aid  to  enforce  the  rites  of  burial,  and  to  secure  the  sanctity  of 
the  grave.  The  souls  of  those  whose  bodies  remained  unburied  were  fabled  in  the 
mythology  of  the  ancients,  to  wander  a  hundred  weary  years  to  and  fro  upon  the 
banks  of  the  river,  beyond  which  lay  the  Elysian  fields,  before  it  was  permitted  to 
them  to  pass  over ;  and  the  prayer  of  t];e  wandering  spirit  of  the  shipwrecked  phi- 
losopher, was  that  a  few  handfuls  of  dust  might  be  cast — "  ter  pule  ere  injecto," — even 
by  the  hand  of  a  stranger,  upon  his  uncovered  remains.  The  last  degree  of  inhu- 
manity, punished  according  to  their  notions  of  future  punishment,  with  the  hottest 
torments  of  the  damned,  was  for  a  victorious  general  to  refuse  to  his  vanquished 
enemy  the  privilege  of  burying  their  dead.  The  very  religion  of  the  ancients  for- 
bade the  dissection  of  human  corpses ;  and  such  dissection  was  first  practised  not 
many  centuries  ago.  Sir,,  these  are  feelings  which  must  be  respected,  no  matter,  I 
repeat,  whether  the  soul  be  mortal  or  immortal  But  if  immortal — and  who  so 
besotted  as  to  doubt  it? — how  much  more  ought  the  frail  tenement  in  which  it  has 


SUPPLEMENT.  541 

been  enclosed,  and  upon  whicli,  it  may  be,  that  it  now  looks  down  in  wistful  solici- 
tude, be  o'uarded  with  the  most  scrupulous  veneration.  No  matter,  either,  whether 
death  be  an  eternal  sleep,  as  some  vainly  and  blasphemously  hold,  or  no  more  than 
a  temporary  slumber  till 

Wrapped  in  fire    the    realms  of  ether  slow, 
And  Heaven's  last  thunder  shakes  the  earth  below. 

But  much  more,  even  for  the  sake  of  the  dead,  ought  protection,  and  the  protec- 
tion of  law,  to  be  extended  to  their  bodies,  if,  as  the  Scriptures  of  truth  teach, 
there  is  to  come  a  day  when  that  great  and  tremendous  Being  who  inhabits  eter- 
nity, shall  judge  both  the  quick  and  the  dead — when  this  corruption  shall  put  6n 
incorruption,  and  this  mortal  immortality,  and  death  be  swallowed  up  in  vic- 
tory. He,  then,  who  holds  to  the  faith  of  the  Christian  religion,  ought  the  more 
readily  and  sacredly  to  respect  the  sanctuary  of  the  tomb.  It  is  hard  enough, 
surely,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  bear  the  lengtliened  and  wearisome  ills  of  life,  without 
being  denied  even  the  cold  repose  of  an  undisturbed  grme.  There  is  anguish 
enough  in  passing  down  into  the  dark  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  without  the 
■superadded  torment  ofthe  anticipated  violation  and  dissection  of  our  bodies.  Shall 
the  weary  never  be  at  rest  ?  I  appeal  to  honorable  gentlemen ;  I  demand  of  you  each 
one,  what  would  be  your  ownfeehngs  under  such  an  anticipation?  But  if  you  care 
not  for  yourself,  what  emotions  would  stir  your  bosom,  under  the  knowledge  that 
the  body  of  the  cherished  wife  of  your  youth,  or  of  the  favorite  child  of  your  ola 
age,  had  been  torn  from  the  grave  over  which  you  had  just  bowed  in  sorrow  your 
stricken  soul,  watering  it  with  your  tears,  to  be  subjected  to  the  merciless  process 
of  dissecting  by  the  knife  of  the  faculty,  though  done  witll  never  so  much  science  ? 

I  am  aware,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the  feelings  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  do  not 
touch  the  pocket.  I  know  that  they  do  not  smack  of  money,  and  cannot  be  coined 
into  gold.  They  do  not  find  exercise  in  the  digging  of  a  canal,  nor  in  the  con- 
structing of  a  railroad,  nor  in  the  establishing  of  a  bank.  No;  they  spring  up  and 
hang  only  as  simple  flowers  over  the  pure  fountains  of  the  human  heart.  I  know, 
too,  the  tendency  of  the  age  to  grossness  and  sensualism ;  to  laugh  at  the  mere 
emotions  of  our  nature,  and  to  centre  aU  the  care  and  protection  of  private  asso- 
ciation and  public  government,  upon  property.  But  these,  sir,  I  repeat  yet  again, 
are  not  feelings  to  be  despised.  You  protect  against  slander ;  yet  the  sense  of 
reputation  is  no  more  than  a  mere  emotion.  Sir,  the  protection  of  property  is 
not  the  sole  business  of  government ;  nor  is  the  protection  of  life.  The  "pursuit 
of  happiness,"  also,  in  whatever  form,  is  equally  an  object  of  governmental  care, 
so  far  as  such  care  ought  to  be  extended  to  any  object. 


THE    PUBLIC    DEBT    OF    OHIO. REPUDIATION. 

Extract  from  Speech  on  the  "  Tax  Bill,"  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Eepresentatives,  Feb.  24, 1846. 

The  debt  is  upon  us,  and  it  must  be  paid,  paid  to  the  uttermost  farthing.  The 
spectre  must  be  exorcised — this  devil  must  be  cast  out.  There  is  no  alternative 
between  payment  and  repudiation.     And  who  will  hesitate  ? 

Democrats,  the  Democrats  of  Ohio,  the  advocates  of  repudiation  1  Sir,  I  hurl 
back  the  slander  with  indignation.  We  are  a  debt-paying,  a  contract-abiding  party. 
We  will  not  stop  to  inquire  by  whom  or  for  what  this  great  debt  was  accumulated. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  it  is  upon  us.     Though  it  were  the  most  improvident 


542  vallakdigiiam's  speeches. 

that  ever  hung  upon  a  nation,  yet  shall  it  be  paid — ^paid,  I  repeat,  to  the  uttermost 
,  farthing.  Ohio  repudiate  I  and  for  what  ?  Have  we  not  nearly  two  millions  of  people, 
and  are  tliey  not  a  people  moral,  industrious,  and  enterprising,  with  sound  hearts 
and  strong  hands?  Have  we  not  millions  of  fertile  acres,  full  of  untold  capacity, 
and  tilled  by  as  noble  a  body  of  husbandmen  as  ever  held  the  plough  ?  Are  wo 
not  rich  in  commerce,  in  manufactures,  in  the  mechanical  arts,  in  merchandise,  in 
natural  capital,  in  resources  almost  boundless,  of  every  kind?  No  State  combines 
a  greater  amount  of  labor  and  capital,  and  till  recently,  none  combined  them  in  so 
just  a  proportion.  Sir,  the  value  of  your  property  cannot  fall  short  of  five  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars.  The  late  report  of  your  State  Auditor  shows  a  taxable 
property  under  the  present  law,  of  a  hundred  and  forty-four  millions.  The  wheat 
crop  alone,  of  your  State  would  in  a  single  year  almost  liquidate  your  whole  debt. 
And  shall  Ohio  repudiate?  IVc  have  not  even  the  ignominious  excuse  of  poverty. 
Sir,  I  think  I  know  the  people  of  this  State,  and  I  know  that  they  can  and  will  pay 
the  last  dollar  of  theij  present  debt.  But  beware  that  you  add  nothing  to  it. 
"  The  last  ounce  may  break  the  camel's  back,"  and  the  people  will  bear  an^  thing 
more  cheerfully  than  heavy  taxes,  wrung  out  year  by  year,  to  feed  up  a  weak  and 
selfish  prodigality.     *    *    * 

And  now  lot  me  say  to  my  friends — it  is  vain  for  you  to  war  against  banks, 
against  monopolies  of  any  sort,  bo  long  as  you  have  a  public  debt.  Rank  it,  too, 
among  your  enemies,  and  a  powerful  ally  to  them,  and  direct  your  most  strenuous 
efforts  to  crush  it.  It  is  the  very  centre,  the  grand  redoubt,  the  rallying-point  of 
the  enemy;  and  until  you  have  carried  it,  complete  victory  cannot  be  yours.  Sir, 
the  hquidation  of  public  debts  is  a  Democratic  policy. 


THE    CHARACTER   OF   THE    TRUE    STATESMAN. 

Extract  from  a  Speech  on  the  Tax  Bill,  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Kepresentatives,  Febrnary  24, 1848, 

Politics  is  a  science  broader  in  its  extent,  as  fixed,  yet  more  Uberal  in  its  prin- 
ciples, more  profound  and  more  diversified  in  its  objects,  as  intricate  in  its  nature, 
more  penetrating  and  controlling  in  its  effects,  wider  far  in  its  influence  on  the  happi- 
ness of  mankind — which  is  the  great  end  of  life — and  nobler,  every  way,  than  all 
other  human  sciences  put  together.  It  is  a  science,  the  province  of  which  is  to 
carry  out,  through  the  agency  of  man,  the  designs  of  the  Deity  himself  To  com- 
prehend such  a  science  in  its  fullest  extent,  is  the  labor  of  a  lifetime,  and  the  busi- 
ness only  of  a  Statesman.  But  by  this  lofty  title  I  do  not  mean,  in  its  present 
degraded  acceptation,  a  miserable  partisan,  without  talents,  without  character ;  full 
of  the  accumulated  vices  and  deformities  which  make  up  the  mere  vulgar  dema- 
gogue, a  compound  of  all  vileness,  the  embodiment  of  every  thing  despicable  : 
whose  very  candor  is  hypocrisy,  whose  reason  is  prejudice,  whose  party  is  hia 
god ;  whose  atom  intellect  is  exhausted  in  low  intrigue,  and  his  whole  research  in 
raking  from  the  mouldering  lumber-house  of  the  past,  the  fleshless  skeletons  of 
long-buried  falsehoods,  to  be  refined  and  tortured  and  galvanized  into  fresh-born 
calumnies ;  or  worse,  prying,  with  the  instinct  of  a  still  lower  and  baser  mean- 
ness, into  the  sanctuary  of  private  life,  and  bedchamber  arrangement.  I  mean 
no  such  detestable  character;  nor  yet  one  who  has  merely  filled  some  legis 
lative  station  with  honor  to  himself  and  benefit  to  his  immediate  constituents 
No :  I  mean  a  Statesman,  in  the  broadest,  highest,  most  comprehensive  sense— 
"a  mind  to  comprehend  the  universe" — bold,  sublime,  original;  from  whose  all- 


SUPPLEMENT.  543 

powerful  grasp  nothing  can  escape,  to  whose  piercing  gaze  nothing  is  dark,  noth- 
ing intricate,  al!  clear,  and  plain,  and  luminous,  as  the  sun  in  the  firmament ;  for 
whose  mighty  compass  immensity  itself  is  scarce  too  great — a  mmd  inductivejp 
philosophical,  inventive,  able  to  originate  the  mightiest  and  most  extensive  plans 
of  national  policy,  not  for  a  day,  but  for  ages ;  capable  of  the  loftiest  designs,  the 
boldest  conceptions,  the  noblest  thoughts — a  mind  that  can  take  in,  at  a  single 
glance,  the  whole  compass  of  State  affairs,  yet,  at  the  same  moment,  examine  each 
separately  without  confusion,  analyzing,  comparing,  arranging,  and  harmonizing 
all  into  one  concordant  whole — a  mind  sagacious,  unerring,  almost  divine — a  mind 
that  can  range  at  will  over  all  cognate  subjects,  can  glance,  with  the  rapidity  of 
thought,  through  the  dark  vista  of  the  past  thousands  of  years,  and,  in  a  moment, 
restraining  its  flight,  pierce,  with  eagle  gaze,  into  the  hidden  recesses  of  the  future, 
"casting  the  nativity  of  unborn  time,"  providing  against  the  storm  before  it  has 
burst,  treasuring  up  the  accumulated  wisdom  of  ages,  and  applying  it  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  present.  A  mind  thus  naturally  gifted,  must  have  been  developed 
,by  years  of  laborious  reading,  observation,  and  study;  must  have  penetrated 
deep  into  human  nature ;  must  be  filled  with  the  whole  history  of  past  and  pres- 
ent states,  adorned  with  the  treasures  of  scienc3  and  literature,  and  enriched  with  all 
the  multifarious  stores  of  legal  and  political  knowledge.  Besides  this,  an  Ameri- 
can statesman  must  be  profoundly  versed  in  the  history,  the  interests,  separate 
and  relative,  of  the  States ;  the  institutions,  political,  Uterary,  and  religious,  of  his 
own  country ;  and  must  have  studied  the  constitution,  laws,  nature,  and  powers 
of  our  peculiar  system  of  government,  with  the  deepest  and  most  untiring  reseanch. 
And  to  these  he  must  add  all  those  qualities  which,  in  public  and  private  life,  can 
ennoble  or  adorn  the  human  character.  His,  too,  must  not  have  been  the  mere 
casual  experience  of  a  few  months,  or  years  of  legislation :  his  whole  life  must 
have  been  devoted  to  it. 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  character  which  I  mean,  when  I  speak  of  a  states- 
man. But  I  do  not  affirm  that  it  has  ever,  as  I  have  drawn  it,  been  exhibited  in 
any  age  or  country ;  nor  yet  that  it  is  wholly  attainable  by  any  mere  "  man  that  is 
born  of  a  woman."  Still  less  would  I  maintain,  that  no  one  is  fit  for  political  life 
or  station,  unless  he  be  just  such  a  statesman.  Our  condition,  were  such  the 
case,  would  be  lamentable  indeed.  But  the  greatest  abQities  are  demanded  only 
for  the  highest  stations  and  the  greatest  exigencies,  which,  comparatively,  are 
few. 


THE    MEXICAN    WAR. 


Extracts  from  Speech  of  December  22, 1846,  on  a  series  of  resolutions  offered  by  Mr.  "V Allan 
DlGHAii  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives,  December  15,  1S46,  of  which  the  following  werj 
two: 

"  That  the  war  thus  brought  about  and  commenced  by  the  aggressions  and  act  of  Mexico  her- 
self, having  been  recognized  by  Congress,  according  to  the  forms  of  the  Constitution,  is  a  Consti- 
tutional tear,  and  a  war  of  the  wtiole  people  of  the  United  States,  begun  (on  our  part)  and  car- 
ried on  in  pursuance  of  the  Consdiuiion  and  lata  of  the  Union. 

"That  this  General  Assembly  has  full  confidence  in  the  wisdom  and  the  ability  of  the  Execn- 
tive  of  the  United  States  to  prosecute  the  war  to  a  successful  and  speedy  termination  by  an  hon- 
OKABLE  peace;  and  that  we  hereby  tender  the  cordial  sympathies  and  support  of  this  common- 
wealth, to  the  said  Executive,  in  the  further  prosecution  of  the  war." 

Mr.  Speaker:  the  gentleman  from  Harrison  (Mr.  Russell),  in  leading  off  the 
opposition  to  these  resolutions,  began  his  spefech  with  a  touching  allusion  to  the 


544  YALLANDIGHAM  S    SPEECHES. 

embarrassment  under  which  he  supposed  himself  to  labor.     Sir,  I  can  readily  be- 
lieve his  enibarrass«jent  imafTccted.     That  gentleman  ahvaj-s  looks  embarrassed; 
•he  has  an  embarrassed  countenance ;  and  on  tliis  occasion,  like  Mark  Antony  be- 
fore the  Roman  citizens,  he  would  fain  have  been  thought  "no  orator  as  Brutus 
is,  but  a  plain,  blunt  man,"  whose  deep  sense  of  duty  and  of  the  responsibilities 
imposed  upon  him  as  a  member  of  this  House,  had  impelled  him,  against  the 
promptings  of  that  natural  modesty  which  almost  overpowered  him,  to  exhaust  a 
long  half  hour  iu  diluting  the  refuse  dregs  of  the  late  inaugural  deco.ction  of  Goy- 
ernor  Bebb's  harangues  from  the  "  stump,"  and  pouring  them  out  in  l;itter  profu- 
sion upon  the  Administration,  and  on  the  Democratic  party  generally.     But  while 
he  is  thus  embarrassed  so  greatly,  between  the  conflicting  calls  of  duty  and  the 
emotions  of  native  modesty,  he  gravely  assumes  to  read  a  lecture  to  the  members 
of  this  House,  for  a  faithless  and  selfish  forgetfulness  of  both,  in  their  base  .scram- 
ble for  the  high  places  of  the  State  and  Federal  governments,  and  hesitates  not,  in 
defiance  of  parliamentary  and  Christian  rule,  to  impugn  the  motives  of  the  mover 
of  these  resolutions,  proclaiming  that  the  apjilause  of  the  "swell  mob."  not  the 
obligation  of  a  representative,  or  the  patriotism  of  a  citizen,  prompted  their  intro- 
duction.    Modestly  claiming  himself  to  be  moved  solely  by  desire  for  the  pubhc 
good,  that  gentleman  calmly  sets  down  the  speeches  and  conduct  of  those  who,  no 
less  honest  and  patriotic  than  himself,  happen  to  differ  from  him  in  political  senti- 
ment, to  the  score  of  self-interested  aspirations  after  office,  or  the  ambition,  stiU 
more  contemptible,  to  become  the  first  among  partisan  hacks.     He,  blushing  in 
virgin  embarrassment,  is  all  candor,  all  fairness,  all  honesty.     His  opponents  are 
as  arrant  and  graceless  a  set  of  political  knaves  as  ever  found  a  seat  among  the 
venal  placemen  of  a  First  Minister  of  England.     Sir,  we  are  obliged  by  him :  we 
owe  him  many  compliments.     All  this  is  very  commendable,  and  I  beg  leave  to 
rejoice  with  him  and  with  his  friends,  over  a  debut  so  early  and  so  successful. 
Above  all,  I  congratulate  him  upon  that  sweet  felicity  of  assurance,  which  enables 
him  to  overcome  the  promptings  of  that  native  modesty  of  his,  and  cast  aside  the 
real  embarrassment  incident  to  a  member  who  rises  for  the  first  time,  to  address 
this  House,  and  arrogating  to  himself  perfect  purity  of  purpose,  dash  with  furious 
assault  upon  the  conduct  and  motives  of  those  who  have  been  so  unfortunate  as 
to  meet  his  waked  wrath.     But  the  gentleman  from  Harrison  is  not  only  modest 
and  pure,  honest,  faithful  and  capable,  but  he  is  independent  also.     He  aspires  to 
no  office ;  he  seeks  no  place ;  he  crooks  not  the  hinges  of  his  knees  to  the  popu- 
lace.    His  judgment  and  his  conscience  are  alone  the  rule  of  his  action.     He  is 
the  very  man,  Justus  et  tenax,  so  much  admired  by  the  old  Romans.     The  people 
may  command  corrupt  things ;  the  broken  heavens  may  fall  down,  but  the  ruins 
strike  him  undismayed.     He  can  look  calmly  and  unmoved  upon  the  popular 
storms  which  toss  us  little  men  to  and  fro  as  a  reed  or  a  feather ;  and  imitating 
the  sublime  fortitude  of  the  Eastern  queen,  can  borrow  her  language  and  exclaim, 
"  If  I  perish,  I  perish."     Well,  sir,  all  this  no  doubt  is  very  comfortable.     I  re- 
member to  have  read  somewhere  of  a  ^French  philosopher  who  held  it  as  a  first 
principle  in  his  creed,  that  there  was  no  reason  on  earth  why  a  man  should  not 
have  a  very  good  opinion  of  himself.     Not  meaning  to  insinuate  that  the  gentle- 
man from  Harrison  is  a  disciple  of  that  school  of  philosophy,  I  beg  to  remind  him, 
that  however  excusable  it  may  be  to  think  highly  of  his  own  honesty  and  inde- 
pendence, charity  requires  that  such  self-satisfaction  be  not  indulged  in  at  the 
expense  of  others.     And  let  me  say  to  him  farther,  that  the  mover  of  these  resolu- 
tions is  just  as  honest  and  independent,  and  as  indifferent  to  office,  and  to  tho 
vmjust  censures  and  opinions  of  mankind  as  he  is,  and  not  more  afraid  to  avow 


SUPPLEMENT.  545 

any  sentiments  he  may  conscientiously  entertain,  or  to  pursue  any  course  of  con- 
duct which  he  may  feel  himself  called  upon  to  pursue.  But  I  am  afraid,  I  am 
afraid  to  meet  tlie  honest  indignation  of  my  constituents,  and  especially  of  that 
portion  of  posterity,  if  any,  who  may  chance  to  concern  themselves  about  my 
opinions  or  conduct  as  a  public  man.  And  more  than  that,  I  am  afraid  to  array 
myself  on  the  side  of  the  enemies  of  my  country.  That,  sir,  is  a  courage  to  which 
I  lay  no  claim,  none.  I  leave  it  all  to  the  honorable  gentleman,  if  he  shall  assume 
it.  Let  him  rejoice  in  it:  I  give  him  joy  in  its  possession.  Sir,  I  offered  not  these 
resolutions  to  entrap  the  member  from  Harrison,  or  any  other  member.  He  was 
not  in  my  eye  when  I  drew  them.  I  offered  them  because  I  was  a  humble  friend 
to  the  Administration  and  to  the  country,  and  because  I  found  that  Administra- 
tion, and  tlirough  it  the  country,  ungraciously  and  fiercely  assaulted  by  men  hold- 
ing high  places  in  this  Commonwealth,  for  what  I  deemed  an  honest  and  faithful 
discharge  of  duty. 
But  the  gentleman  from  Harrison  further  charges  me  with  ambition. 

"The  noble  Brutus 
Hath  told  you  CJESar  was  ambitious ; 
If  it  were  so,  it  was  a  grievous  fault, 
And  grievously  hath  Ccesar  ansicered  iV 

Sir,  I  freely  confess  that  I  am  not  of  so  stoical  a  mould  of  mind  as  to  be  indif- 
ferent altogether  to  the  honors  and  glories  of  the  world.  But  mine,  I  trust,  is 
that  honorable  ambition  which  seeks  the  attainment  of  "noble  ends  by  noble 
means."  If  I  am  not  without  ambition,  I  yet  hope  that  I  shall  be  found  "  without 
the  illness  which  should  attend  it."  Of  such  ambition  I  am  not  ashamed.  But 
the  gentleman  misapprehends  me.  I  did  not  speak  of  the  "  high  places"  of  the 
State  and  the  Union  as  the  motives  which  control  my  speeches  and  movements  in 
this  House,  or  as  fitting  motives  to  'govern  any  one.  Far  from  it.  I  have  never 
made  office,  or  even  honor,  the  aim  or  end  of  my  ambition.  They  are  desirable 
only  so  far  as  they  enable  the  true  patriot  the  more  efficiently  lo  do  good  for  his 
country  and  for  mankind,  and  not  for  their  own  sake.  In  this  spirit  and  convic- 
tion I  begin  public  life,  and  in  it  I  trust  to  continue  steadfast  to  tlie  end.    *    *     * 

Sir,  we  have  hearkened  calmly  to  the  bitter  denunciations  and  mournful  wailings 
over  this  war,  which  day  after  day  have  been  rehearsed  in  our  ears,  till  vexed  with 
the  repetition.  We  have  been  reminded  of  the  odium  and  iniquity  of  the  war,  and 
have  had  the  responsibility  laid  to  our  charge.  The  blood  of  our  brethren,  falling 
in  battle,  you  tell  us,  cries  out,  like  the  blood  of  the  first  martjT  Abel,  against  us 
from  the  ground.  The  widow's  wail  and  the  orphan's  tear  are  summoned  up  in 
judgment  against  us.  The  millions,  too,  of  treasure  expended,  or  yet  to  be  spent, 
in  the  prosecution  of  this  "unholy  crusade  against  our  Mexican  brethren,"  is  set 
down  to  our  account ;  and  the  vengeance  of  heaven  and  the  indignation  of  the 
people  invoked  upon  us.  Sir,  these  "  incantations  of  the  prophet"  disturb  not  our 
lightest  slumbers.  I  tell  the  gentleman  that  we  take  the  responsibility.  "We  an- 
swer for  the  blood  and  treasure  of  this  war.  But  let  me  admonish  him  that,  held 
responsible  for  them,  we  claim  the  glory  too.  Palo  Alto  is  ours ;  Resaca  de  la  Palma 
is  ours;  Monterey  is  ours;  the  living  glories  which  encircle  the  brow  of  a  Taylor 
are  ours;  the  sepulchral  honors  which  adorn  the  tomb  of  a  Ringgold  are  ours. 
Ours,  too,  is  the  bright  history  of  this  period.  To  us  belong  the  admiration  of  other 
nations,  the  gratitude  of  the  present  generation,  and  the  applause  of  posterity  in 
coming  time.  We  consent  to  share  it  with  none  of  the  revilers  of  this  war.  We 
claim  it  all,  all  for  ourselves  and  our  children.  Sir,  if  you  wiD  howl  over  ita 
35 


54G  vallandioiiam's  speeches. 

calamities,  then  in  the  name  of  the  living,  by  the  blood  of  the  slain,  you  shall  have 
no  part  or  lot  in  its  glories.     *     *     * 

In  conclusion,  sir,  I  must  be  allowed  to  insist  tliat  this  discussion  has  not  been 
80  much  out  of  place  as  some  gentlemen  seem  to  tliink.  The  State  of  Ohio  is  one 
of  the  sisters  of  the  great  American  Confederacy;  and  within  the  limits  prescribed 
by  the  Constitution,  an  independent  and  sovereign  constituent  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, having  intimate  connection  witli  all  its  highest  interests.  The  laws  of 
the  Federal  Government  extend  over  us:  we  are  bound  by  them;  #nd  must  bear 
our  part  of  the  burdens  thus  imposed,  and  shed  our  blood  and  expend  our  treasure 
in  the  conflicts  which  tliat  government  may  bring  upon  us.  As  a  friend  to  our 
peculiar  system  in  its  true  spirit,  and  as  a  State-Rights  man,  I  would  be  sorry  to 
see  the  day  when  the  individual  States  shall  cease  to  feel  the  deepest  solicitude  in 
the  acts  of  tlie  Government  of  the  Union. 


SLAVERY. THE    WILMOT    PROVISO. — THE    UNION. 

Remarks,  January  21,  laiT,  on  the  resolution  of  Mr.  II.  G.  Blake,  in  the  Ohio  Ilonse  of  Repre- 
sentatives, rcqueslini;  our  Senators  and  Reproscntativi-s  to  vote  for  "  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  territory  of  Oregon,  and  also  from  any  other  territory  that  now  is,  or  may  hereafter  b<>,  anoexod 
to  the  United  States."    The  following  is  the  debate,  as  reported  in  tho  Ohio  Utatetman. 

Mr.  Ellison,  of  Brown,  moved  to  add  these  words : 

"  Excepting  in  those  cases  where  the  welfare  and  safety  of  tub  Union  may  other- 
wise require." 

Mr.  Fr.\nklin  T.  Backus,  of  Cuyahoga,  m^oved  to  amend,  by  inserting  after  the 
word  "Union,"  the  words  "in  the  opinion  of  the  chivalry."     (A  laugh.) 

Mr.  Vallandigham  rose,  and  began  by  rebuking  the  laughter,  and  laughing 
gentlemen,  and  asked  them,  if  they  had  forgotten  the  great  Missouri  Compromise  7 
That  compromise — the  principle  of  concession  which  was  now  (1847)  laughed  at — 
had  saved  the  Union  in  1820.  But  for  the  respect  which  our  fathers  felt  for  this 
principle,  and  which  was  then  manifested  by  none  more  worthily  than  by  Mr.  Clay 
himself,  this  Union  would  have  then  been  dissolved.  Mr.  V.  declared,  for  himsellj 
that  whenever  any  question  might  arise,  involving  the  Union  in  the  alternative,  he 
would  go  with  his  might  un  that  side — on  the  side  of  the  Union,  "  now  and  forever,  one 
and  imeparabk."  Would  any  gentleman  rehnquish  the  Union  rather  than  tolerate 
the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  South  ? 

Mr.  Backus  also  believed  the  Compromise  (1820)  to  have  been  necessary  to  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Union.  But  such  an  issue  was  not  likely  again  to  occur.  The 
slavehokling  States  luoidd  be  tlie  last  to  secede  and  dissolve  the  Union.  "With  what  face 
could  gentlemen  give  out  their  fears  on  this  subject,  when  they  remember  the 
treatment  which  John  Quincy  Adams  received  at  their  hands,  at  tlie  time  when  he 
stood  up  in  Congress  for»a  considerate  and  rational  report  upon  a  jjetition  to  dissolve 
thx  Union.  What  a  bluster  they  made,  and  they  were  going  to  expel  the  old  man 
from  the  House !  Mr.  B.  affirmed  again  that  we  had  all  been  deceived — the  slave- 
holders themselves,  by  their  acts,  had  manifested  the  fact,  that  the  very  salvation 
of  their  system  depends  upon  their  remaining  in  the  Union.  We  had  heard  enough 
of  these  tlireats  to  know  how  to  regard  them. 

Mr.  Vallandighasi.  The  gentleman  says  that  such  a  portentous  issue  as  that 
Involved  in  the  Missouri  question  is  not  likely  again  to  arise.  Let  him  not  lay  to 
his  soul  that  flattering  unction.  But  the  gentleman  from  Cuyahoga  seems  over 
familiar  with  this  talk  of  dissolving  the  Union.     That  gentleman  (Mr.  B.)  resided 


SUPPLEMENT.  547 

in  a  district  claiming  that  there  now  existed  cause  for  dissolving  th*  Union.  He 
belonged  to  the  district  of  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  who  declared  of  his  constituents, 
that  they  were  dissolved  from  all  political  connection  tvith  the  Southern  States,  on 
account  of  the  annexation  of  Texas.  But  the  mind  of  the  House  was  not  to  be 
drawn  ofiT  from  this  question  by  raising  a  dispute,  whether  Mr.  Clay  ever  acted  as 
an  honest  man.  The  question  was,  whether  such  an  exigency  as  that  developed 
in  the  Missouri  question  may  not  happen  again.  What  had  once  happened  might 
happen  again;  and  let  us  not  become  wise  above  what  comes  to  us  as  the  lessons 
of  the  past.  The  gentleman  from  Cuyalioga  had  not  answered  the  question,  "  If 
he  were  to  decide  between  the  exclusion  of  slavery  with  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  and  the  perpetuation  of  the  Union  in  connection  with  that  institution, 
whether  he  would  prefer  to  go  for  dissolution?  He  (Mr.  V.)  trusted  the  amend- 
ment would  carry  witlrout  the  mutilation  proposed  by  the  gentleman  from  Cuyahoga. 
If  we  were  to  throw  a  firebrand  toward  the  South — if  we  must  needs  throw  down 
the  gauntlet  before  them,  in  the  shape  of  these  resolutions,  they  should  at  least  be 
shaped  so  as  not  to  endanger  the  Union;  they  should,  by  all  means,  be  put  in  such 
a  guarded  form  as  not  to  endanger  our  favored  institutions.  Mr.  V.  felt  that,  per- 
haps, he  had  been  too  much  in  earnest  upon  this  question.  He  had  spoken  from 
impulse,  and,  perhaps,  with  too  much  freedom  and  feeling,  because  he  felt  called 
upon  as  a  patriot  and  citizen  to  resist  and  expose  every  measure  which  might  work  incai- 
nUable  mischief,  not  only  to  ourselves,  but  to  generations  yet  unborn. 


POLITICAL    POSITION    AND    PRINCIPLK3. 

Extracts  from   "Salutatory  Address,"  on   assnmin";  editorial  charge  of  the  ^Dayton  (Ohio) 

Empire;''  September  2, 184T. 

We  will  contend  calmly  and  resolutely  for  all  salutary  reforms ;  yet  not  as  seek- 
ing to  change  existing  institutions  solely  because  they  are  old,  nor  clamoring  for 
any  innovation  simply  because  it  is  new.  "To  innovate  is  not  to  reform."  Yet 
no  abuse  sliall  escape  us  because  covered  by  the  prescription  of  ages,  or  protected 
by  the  canonizing  authority  of  great  names. 

A  radical  Democrat  as  well  from  sober  conviction  as  from  impulse,  we  will  main- 
tain with  calm  but  determined  firmness  the  doctrines  of  radical  progressive  Demo©- 
racy.  Ours,  however,  is  not  the  sans  culolte  democracy  of  the  faubourg  calling 
for  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  heads;  but  our  own  peculiar,  rational,  con- 
stitutional, American  Democracy — that  Democracy  which  is  built  upon  law  and 
order,  and  governed  through  reason  and  by  justice — a  Democracy  the  aim  of  which 
is  to  approximate  our  forms  and  administration  of  government  as  nearly  to  the 
Standard  of  unmixed  democracies  as  our  circumstances  and  the  well-being  of  society 
will  admit ;  to  leave  as  much  power  with  the  people  in  their  unorganized  capacity 
aa  is  compatible  with  the  necessities  and  efGcient  existence  of  government,  dele- 
gating  no  more  to  their  agents  than  is  requisite  for  its  just  and  legitimate  purposes. 
I  We  will  contend  to  the  utmost,  for  the  largest  wholesome  individual  freedom  of 
action  in  all  things,  and  oppose  with  our  whole  heart,  that  pernicious  and  anti-dem- 
ocratic intermeddling  of  government  with  those  private  affairs  and  relations  between 
man  and  man,  which  of  right  and  upon  policy  ought  to  be  left  to  the  individual 
citizen  himself 
_    We  will  maintain  the  right  of  the  majority  to  govern ;  not  as  a  natural  right,  inlie- 


548  VALLANDIOn Ail's    SPEECHES. 

rent  in  majorities,  but  as  a  political  right,  subject,  therefore,  as  well  to  the  restric- 
tions imposed  upon  it  by  our  Constitutions  and  laws  (except  in  cases  justifying  a 
resort  to  the  ultima  ratio  p'lpuli,  Revolution')  as  to  the  natural  and  imprescriptible 
rights  of  tlie  men  composing  minorities,  as  individuals.  We  AVill  war  against  des- 
potism in  all  its  forms,  and  to  us  the  desporism  of  the  many  is  no  more  tolerable 
than  the  despotism  of  the  few. 

"tt'e  will  maintain  the  ivill  of  the  people  to  be  the  supreme  law,  subject  to  the  eter- 
nal principles  of  right  and  justice,  which  it  belongs  not  to  the  people  to  give  or 
take  away;  but  we  will  seek  for  that  will  primarily  iu  the  constitution  and  laws. 
The  will  of  the  people,  as  exhibited  througli  the  press,  through  public  assemblies, 
petitions,  and  above  all,  the  ballot-box,  is  in  itself  neither  constitution  nor  law; 
nor  has  it  the  force  thereof,  though  entitled  to  great  respect.  But  it  is  the  highest 
evidence  of  what  constitutions  and  laws  the  people  desire  to  have  ordained  and 
enacted ;  and  to  the  framers  of  constitutions,  and  to  legislators  as  such,  we  hold 
it  to  be,  when  fully  and  authentically  ascertained,  the  supreme  law,  as  above 
limited. 

We  will  support  the  Coxstitutiox  of  the  United  States,  in  its  whole  integ- 
rity, as  it  came  to  us  from  "  the  Fathers,"  believing  it  to  establish,  in  prmciple,  the 
very  best  form  of  government  which  the  wisdom  of  man  ever  devised. 

We  will  protect  and  defend,  according  to  our  opportunities  and  abihties,  the 
Union  of  these  States,  as  in  very  deed  the  '•  Palladium  of  our  political  prosper- 
ity," "the  only  rock  of  our  safety,"  less  sacred  only  than  Liberty  herself;  and  we 
will  pander  to  the  sectional  prejudices,  or  the  fanaticism,  or  wounded  pride,  or 
disappointed  ambition,  of  no  man,  or  set  of  men,  whereby  that  Union  shall  be 
put  in  jeopardy. 

We  wiU  maintain  the  doctrine  of  strict  construction,  as  applied  to  all  grants  of 
power,  in  trust,  to  the  agents  and  servants  of  the  people,  and  especially  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  and  we  will  stand  fast  to  the  doctrine,  also,  of 
"State  RianTS,"  as  embodied  in  Mr.  Madison's  Virginia  Report  and  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's Kentucky  Resolutions  of  '98. 

Free  trade,  the  Constitutional  Treasury,  equitable  taxation,  assessed  upon  sound 
financial  principles ;  the  collection  of  no  more  revenue  in  the  treasury  of  the  Gen- 
eral and  State  government  than  will  suffice,  under  a  wholesome  administration  of 
the  finances ;  the  faithful  and  speedy  discharge  of  the  State  debt,  never  to  be  in- 
curred again  in  time  of  peaoe ;  a  revision  of  our  State  Constitution  without  further 
delay ;  wholesome  and  rational  economy  in  all  the  departments,  and  all  the  trans- 
actions of  government,  far  removed  from  the  "economy  of  meanness;"  confidence 
in  the  people,  jealousy  of  their  agents ;  one  term  to  the  Presidency ;  a  fixed  tenure 
to  every  office  under  the  Federal  Government,  which  will  properly  admit  of  it ; 
war  before  dishonor,  but  honorable  peace  always  to  be  preferred  to  war — these 
and  other  kindred  principles  and  measures,  will  receive  our  hearty  support. 

The  cause  of  popular  education  shall  receive,  in  like  manner,  our  cordial  sym- 
pathy and  aid,  as  of  the  last  necessity  to  the  prosperity  and  permanence  of  our 
institutions. 

To  the  present  Administration  we  will  lend  that  support  (whatever  it  is  worth), 
which  an  honest,  independent  man  may,  and  ought  to  extend,  to  the  Administra- 
tion of  the  party  to  which  he  belongs. 

On  these,  as  on  all  subjects,  our  opinions  shall  be  our  own,  and  they  shall  be 
candidly,  boldly,  but  courteously  expressed.  In  our  editorial  intercourse  with  the 
pubhc,  we  shall  seek  no  personal  controversy,  nor  shall  any  one  draw  us  into  any 
controversy  unbecoming  a  gentleman.    Towards  aU  adversaries,  between  whom 


SUPPLEMENT.  549 

and  us  there  shall  arise  any  matter  of  difference,  we  will  exhibit  proper  respect, 
sometimes  for  their  sakes — always  for  our  own. 


THE    CLERGY    AND    POLITICS. 


Extract  from  an  Editorial    Review  of  a  Sermon    against  the  Mexican  War,  by  a  Methodist 
preacher ;  Dayton  Empirt,  December  2, 1847. 

The'  Saviour,  whose  Gospel  lie  professes,  gave  no  such  example,  taught  no  such 
doctrine.  When  the  Pharisees,  "  tempting  Him,"  asked  whether  it  were  lawful  to 
pay  tribute  to  Ctesar,  a  question  which  then  divided  the  Jewish  nation,  instead 
of  pandering  to  their  partisan  feelings  and  prejudices,  by  arraying  himself  upon  the 
one  side  or  the  other.  He  commanded  them  to  "render  unto  Caesar  the  things 
which  were  Ca3sar's,  and  to  God  the  things  which  were  God's."  It  is  no  part  of 
the  duty  of  the  Christian  minister,  under  the  cloak  of  religion,  and  in  the  Phari- 
saical cant  of  being  otherwise  recreant  to  duty,  to  pronounce  his  judgment  in  the 
pulpit,  upon  the  great  political  questions,  which  distract  the  generation  in  Which 
he  lives.  There  is  an  end  of  all  purity  and  usefulness  in  the  ministry,  and  with  it 
of  the  usefulness  and  purity  of  religion  also,  if  such  a  course  be  tolerated.  If  the 
clergy  and  the  church  are  to  be  arrayed  against  the  Democratic  party,  on  the  ques- 
tion of  this  war,  let  us  know  it,  that  we  may  set  our  battle  in  array  accordingly. 

*  *  *  *  Hf.  *  ^ 

In  attacking,  thus  boldly,  the  abuses  of  religion  by  those  who  essay  to  preach  it, 
we  make  no  attack  on  religion  itself.  We  desire  to  separate,  carefully  and  widely, 
between  the  two.  We  were  taught,  from  earliest  infancy,  and  have  sought  to 
practise  the  lesson  ever  since,  to  reverence  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  and  to  re- 
spect those,  at  least,  of  its  ministers,  who  walk  worthy  of  their  vocation. 


THE    RIGHT    OF    REVOLUTION, "  DORRISM." 

Extract  from  an  Editorial,  in  the  Dayton  Empire^  March  28, 1848. 

There  is  no  question  in  politics,  which  we  have  investigated  with  more  dili- 
gence, patience,  and  research,  than  the  above,  ever  since  it  was  first  brought  be- 
fore the  public,  by  the  movements  in  Rhode  Island,  in  1841  and  1842.  If  we 
have  erred  in  our  conclusion,  it  is  not  because  we  have  spared  pains  to  avoid 
error.  At  the  same  time  we  recognize,  to  the  fullest  extent,  what  Mr.  Calhoun 
has  called  "  the  glorious  right  of  rebellion  and  revolution."  And  it  is  because  we 
hold  to  and  rely  upon  this,  that  we  reject  the  other.  We  know  of  no  "  peaceable, 
constitutional"  mode  of  setting  aside  existing  Constitutions,  except  in  the  way  ■ 
which  they  themselves  have  prescribed.  If  the  case  demands  revolution,  the 
mode  must  be  revolutionary.  *  *  *  *  -^q  g^Lj,  therefore,  boldly,  that 
we  are  opposed  to  any  movement  in  Ohio,  which  shall  be  based  upon  the  doctrine 
of  "Dorrism,"  as  set  up  in  the  Rhode  Island  affair  of  1842.  After  signal  failure 
then,  and  recent  condemnation  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  wo 
cannot  regard  it  as  a  safe  doctrine  to  put  in  practice  in  this  State.      *      *      ♦ 

The  difference  between  this  mode  of  securing  a  new  Constitution  and  "  Dorr- 
ism," is  manifest  as  day.  The  latter  begins  with  the  assumption  that  a  numeri- 
cal majority  have  a  right,  natural,  inherent,  and  inalienable,  to  set  aside  existing 
rules  and  forms  as  prescribed  by  constitutions,  and  proposes  by  spontaneous  move- 


550i  vallats^digham's  speeches. 

mcnt,  without  form  or  color  of  law,  to  abrogate  an  instrument  acknowledged  to 
be  binding  at  the  time,  and  to  substitute  another  in  it8  stead.  The  other,  recog- 
nizing the  right  of  Revolution  to  tlie  full  extent,  as  laid  down  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  tlie  Constitutions  of  the  several 
States,  and  among  these  of  Ohio,  but  denying  that  these  instruments  can  "form- 
ally and  peaceably"  be  set  aside,  except  in  the  mode  wliich  tliey  them^^elves  pre- 
scribe, proposes  to  wait  till  by  a  lapse  of  the  powers  delegated  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  their  consequent  reversion  to  the  people,  that  instrument  has  ceased  to 
exist.  In  this  latter  case  the  forms  of  the  Constitution  and  law  are  not  looked  to, 
Bolely  because  such  forms  no  longer  have  a  being.  *  *  *  "W^e  are  for  pursu- 
ing a  legal  and  coostiiutional  course,  as  long  as  the  Constitution  and  laws  have  an 
existence.  The  extreme  medicine  of  the  body  politic,  must  not  be  made  its  daily 
bread. 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS THE  TRUE  AND  THE  FALSE. 

Extract  from  Remarks  at  tbs  "  Eighth  of  January  Sapper ;"  Columbus,  Ohio,  1S50. 

"We  are  apt,  sir,  in  the  midst  of  the  all-absorbing  topics  and  occurrences  of  the 
day  we  live  in,  to  forget,  sometimes,  that  there  is  a  Future  before  us,  with  its  high 
hopes  and  its  lofty  anticipations,  and  whose  unformed  destinies  are  yet  to  be 
shaped  by  the  earnest  labors  of  our  hands :  but  much  oftener,  that  tliere  ever  has 
been  a  great  Past,  full  of  vitality,  and  full  of  great  men  and  yet  greater  deeds, 
and  full,  too,  of  lessons  and  examples  fitted  to  expound  the  present,  and  to  stir 
the  emulation  and  develop  to  the  utmost,  the  genius  and  faculties  of  the  genera- 
tioa  of  to-day.  I  am  not,  indeed,  as  yet  old  enough,  Mr.  President,  to  have  be- 
come, after  the  manner  of  Marius,  a  dweller  amid  the  tombs  and  monuments  and 
ruins  of  the  past.  There  is  something  awfully  grand  in  the  contemplation,  cer- 
tainly ;  and  fearful  lessons  and  a  terrible  discipline  to  mind  and  soul,  are  to  be 
there  learned.  But  they  belong  not  to  the  business  of  the  hour.  There  is  a  dry- 
ness and  hoariness  about  them,  little  calculated  to  fit  us  for  the  struggles  and 
hand-to-hand  conflicts  of  active  life.  I  am  no  admirer  yet — I  trust  I  never  shall 
be — of  the  "  dry-as-dust"  conservatism  of  the  past.  But  there  are  two  Pasts 
behind  us;  "the  Dead  Past  and  the  Living  Past.  "Let  the  dead  past  bury  its 
dead."  Our  business  is  with  the  living  past.  It  is  good  for  us  to  recur  to  it 
for  its  profound  lessons  of  wisdom,  and  for  the  contemplation  of  its  sublime  and 
ennobling  exemplars  and  monuments.  There  is  a  purity,  a  freshness,  a  reinvig- 
orating  stimulus  in  these  fountains  of  principle  and  action,  which  belong  not  to 
the  turbid  and  corrupt  streams  which  flow  so  far  removed  from  their  source.  It 
IS  good  for  us  to  drink,  now  and  then,  at  these  fountains.  He  who  will  not  look 
to  the  past,  is  not  fit,  said  a  great  and  philosophic  statesman,  to  direct  the  future. 
And  with  all  our  devotion  to  progress,  and  all  our  zeal  and  absorption  in  the  things 
of  the  present,  we  are  yet  ever  ready  to  bestow  our  admiration  and  regard  upon 
whatever  or  whomsoever  among  the  events  or  the  men  of  other  times,  is  great  or 
heroic     *     *    * 

The  duties  which  devolve  upon  us,  in  the  day  we  hve  in,  if  not  as  arduous,  as 
elevated,  and  as  replete  with  grand  results  as  in  years  past,  are  yet  important 
enough,  and  equally  obligatory  upon  us.  If  we  cannot  achieve  liberty,  independ- 
ence, and  Union,  it  is  our  sacred  trust  to  preserve  them.  It  is  our  good  fortune, 
also,  to  live  in  an  age  when  mental  and  physical  activity  and  development,  are  at 
their  highest  point.     We  live  in  tha  midst  of  progress  and  reform  of  every  kind, 


SUPPLEMENT,  551 

and  when  the  obsolete  and  exploded  customs  and  ideas  of  the  dead  past  are 
rapidly  passing  away.  *  *  *  The  hour  and  the  man  are  not  yet  come ;  but 
they  are  at  hand.  False  Conservatism  may,  indeed,  sit  like  the  grim  giant  in  the 
Allegory,  and  fret,  and  fume,  and  champ  its  chains,  and  gnash  its  teeth  at  the 
progress  and  reform  which  it  cannot  arrest ;  or  like  the  owl,  its  fit  emblem,  may 
sit  within  the  shadow  and  darkness  of  the  dead  past,  and  stare  in  blindness  with 
its  gray  and  vacant  eyes,  and  hoot  at  the  light  which  is  breaking  in  upon  its  soli- 
tudes. But  its  sceptre  is  about  to  depart,  and  its  kingdom  to  be  taken  from  it 
Yet  let  us  not  mistake.  *  *  *  Several  years  ago,  some  workmen 
digging  in  one  of  the  principal  streets  of  New  York,  turned  up  an  ancient  mile- 
stone, on  which,  in  antique  and  half-obliterated  letters,  was  the  inscription,  "  One 
mile  to  New  York."  A  right  curious  relic  of  the  past,  the  dead  past,  sir,  was  this 
old  mile-stone.  Once  its  inscription  was  true.  Once  it  was  one  mile  to  New  York. 
But  a  century  had  elapsed ;  all  around  had  changed.  By  little  and  little  the  city 
had  extended,  nearer  and  nearer,  and  yet  nearer  to  it,  and  beyond  it,  till  at  last, 
sinking  into  the  earth,  and  buried  beneath  buildings  and  improvements,  it  is  for- 
gotten ;  and  when,  at  length,  after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  it  is  turned  up 
again  to  broad  day,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city,  it  still  exclaims,  with  the  spirit 
and  in  the  very  tone  of  the  false  conservatism,  "  One  mile  to  New  York."  *  * 
*  *  *  *  But  while  we  eschew  a  dead'  conservatism,  we  must  yet 
ever  bear  in  mind  that  all  change  is  not  reform,  and  that  we  owe  "  a  decent  re- 
spect" to  the  opinions,  customs,  practices,  and  institutions  of  those  who  have  gone 
before  us.  It  is  not  every  kind  of  progress  which  is  desirable.  There  is  a  pro- 
gress backwards  as  well  as  forwards ;  and  a  progress,  now  and  then,  which  leads 
to  defeat  and  ruin.  Nature  sometimes  interposes  impregnable  barriers ;  circum- 
.  stances  often  oppose ;  and  progress  then  rebounds  discomfited,  and  falls  hope- 
lessly into  the  arms  of  the  false  conservatism  ;  or,  if  successful,  ends  only  in  de- 
struction. This  is  not  the  advancement  which  we  want  or  advocate.  The  car  of 
Juggernaut  is  progressive ;  but  its  progress  is  marked  every  furlong  by  the  crush- 
ed and  mangled  bodies  of  human  victims.  It  is  the  highest  of  political  wisdom 
accurately  to  distinguish  between  the  true  progress  and  the  false  ;  between  that 
which  is  fitting  and  practicable,  and  that  which  ends  only  in  mischief  and  dis- 
aster. 


THE    COMPROMISE    MEASURES    OF    1850. 

These  Resolutions  were  reported  by  Mr.  Vallandigiiam,  from  a  committee,  and  unanimously 
adopted,  at  a  large  public  meeting,  held,  without  distinction  of  party,  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  October 
26, 1850.  He  supported  them  in  a  speech  not  reported.  He  had  also  spoken  at  a  meeting  a  few 
days  before,  called  to  denounce  the  Compromise  Measures.  Of  that  speech  one  paper  (Whig) 
said:  "  It  was  ingenious  and  eloquent.  His  objection  to  the  course  proposed  by  the  resolutions 
was,  that  it  would  lead  to  further  agitation,  and  tend  to  endanger  the  Union." 

Another  said :  "  His  remarks  were  earnest,  dignified,  and  appropriate.  He  strongly  deprecated 
every  new  attempt  to  inflame  the  public  mind,  while  he  enforced,  in  strains  of  lofty  and  impas- 
sioned eloquence,  the  duty  of  every  good  citizen  to  observe  and  maintain  the  sanction  of  law, as 
the  only  way  to  secure  the  peace,  order,  and  happiness  of  society  anywhere." 

1.  Thai  we  are  for  the  Union  as  it  is,  and  the  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  that  we 
will  preserve,  maintain,  and  defend  both  at  every  hazard,  observing,  with  scrupu- 
lous and  uncalculating  fidelity,  every  article,  requirement,  and  compromise  of  the 
Constitutional  compact  between  these  States,  to  the  letter,  and  in  its  utmost  spirit, 


552  yallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 

and  recognizing  no  "higher  law,"  between  which  and  the  Constitution  we  know 
of  any  conflict. 

2.  Tliat  the  Constitution  was  "  the  result  of  a  spirit  of  amity,  and  of  that  mutual 
deference  and  concession  which  the  pecuHarity  of  our  political  situation  rendered 
indispensable  ;"  that  by  amity,  conciUation,  and  compromise  alone,  can  it,  and  the 
Union  wliich  it  established,  be  preseryed  ;  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  all  good  citi- 
zens to  frown  indignantly  upon  every  attempt,  wheresoever  or  by  whomsoever 
made,  to  array  one  section  of  the  Union  against  the  other ;  to  foment  jealousies 
and  heart-burnings  between  them,  by  systematic  and  organized  misrepresentation, 
denunciation  and  calumny,  aud  thereby  to  render  them,  in  feeling  and  aflection, 
ihe  inheritors  of  so  noble  a  common  patrimony,  purchased  by  our  fathers  at  so 
great  expense  of  blood  and  treasure. 

3.  That  as  the  friends  of  peace  and  concord — as  lovers  of  the  Union,  and  foes, 
sworn  upon  the  horns  of  the  altar  of  our  common  country,  to  all  who  seek,  and  all 
that  tends  to  its  dissolution,  we  have  viewed  with  anxiety  and  alarm  the  perilous 
crisis  brought  upon  us  by  years  of  ceaseless  and  persevering  agitation  of  the 
slavery  question,  in  its  various  forms ;  and  that  the  Executive  and  Congress  of  the 
United  States  have  deserved  well  of  the  Republic,  for  their  patriotic  efforts  so  to 
compromise  and  adjust  this  vexed  question,  as  to  leave  no  good  cause  for  clamor  or 
offence  by  any  portion  of  the  Union. 

4.  That  a  strict  adherence,  in  all  its  parts,  to  the  compromise  thus  deliberately 
and  solemnly  effected,  is  essential  to  the  restoration  and  maintenance  of  peace, 
harmony,  and  fraternal  affection  between  the  different  sections  of  the  Union,  and 
thereby  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union  itself;  and  that  good  faith  imperatively 
demands  that  adherence  at  the  hands  of  aU  good  citizens,  whether  of  the  North 
or  of  the  South.  • 

5.  That,  believing  this  compromise  the  very  best  which,  in  view  of  the  circum- 
stances and  temper  of  the  times,  could  have  been  attained,  we  are  for  it  as  it  is, 
and  opposed  to  all  agitation,  looking  to  a  repeal  or  essential  modification  of  any 
of  its  parts,  and  that  we  will  lend  no  aid  or  comfort  to  those  who,  for  any  purpose, 
seek  further  to  agitate  and  embroQ  the  country  upon  these  questions. 

6.  That  "  all  obstructions  to  the  execution  of  the  laws,  all  combinations  and  as- 
sociations, under  whatever  plausible  character,  with  the  real  design  to  direct,  con- 
trol,  counteract,  or  awe  the  regular  deliberation  and  action  of  the  constituted 
authorities,  are  destructive  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  our  institutions,  and 
of  fatal  tendency";  that  all  such  efforts,  wherever  made,  or  by  whomsoever  ad- 
vised, find  no  answering  sympathy  in  our  breast — nothing  but  loathing  and  con- 
tempt ;  and  that  we  hereby  pledge  ourselves  to  the  country,  that,  so  far  as  in  us 
hes,  THE  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the  Laws,  must  and  shall  be  maintained. 


MONEYED    AND    MUNICIPAL    CORPOKATIONS. 

Extract  from  Argument  for  the  plaintiff  in  error,  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio,  in  The  OUy 
of  Dayton  vs.  Peate,  December  Term,  1S64. 

I  DO  not  propose  to  enter  into  any  elaborate  criticism  of  these  decisions.  But 
allow  me,  nevertheless,  with  great  respect  to  the  memory  of  the  late  Supreme 
Court,  to  suggest  that  they  are  part  of  the  footsteps  of  your  predecessors  wherein, 
I  trust,  this  Court,  as  now  constituted,  has  no  inclination  to  tread.  I  admit,  cor- 
dially, and  now  mournfully,  the  genius  and  the  eloquence  of  the  late  lamented  Judge 
Read—  . .  ,  intellectual  meteor,  which  shot  its  splendid  coruscations  of  Ught  for  a 


SUPPLEMENT.  553 

little  while,  across  the  heavens,  and  then  went  out  in  utter  darkness,  upon  the  dis- 
tant horizon  of  the  Pacific.  Yet  I  cannot  but  believe  that  in  the  judgment  which 
he  gave  in  Fifteenth  Ohio  Reports,  he  was  not  a  Uttle  influenced  bj'  tlie  peculiar 
political  notions  which  prevailed  then  upon  the  subject  of  corporations,  and  which 
found  their  way  in  eloquent,  but  not  xevy  judicial  language,  into  that  judgment. 
Concurring,  as  I  tlien  did,  and  do  still,  generally,  to  the  uttermost,  in  his  views, 
upon  the  great  and  ever  vital  question  of  moneyed  corporations,  permit  me  yet  to 
suggest  that  this  holy  horror  of  corporate  seals,  and  the  mystic  nature  of  wax, 
and  all  that  other  "  transcendentalism,"  which  that  late  learned  and  lamented  Judge 
declares  "had  enteloped  both  the  courts  and  the  profession  in  a  mist,  growing 
out  of  the  airy  notliingness  of  the  subject  matter,  and  enabled  corporations,  hl;o 
the  pestilence  which  walketh  unseen,  to  do  their  mischief,  and  escape  responsi- 
bility," is  by  no  means  to  be  extended  to  all  corporations,  and  least  of  aU,  perhaps, 
to  municipal  corporations.  There  is  nothing  in  the  origin,  past  history,  or  pur- 
poses of  s\ich  corporations,  which  ouglit  to  subject  them  to  odium  or  disfavor,  or 
to  stricter  rules  than  other  public  ofincers,  or  certainly,  at  least  individuals,  exer- 
cising Uke  powers.  To  these  cor j  orations,  more  than  to  any  other  proximate  cause — 
more  by  f  ;r  than  to  Magna  Charta  and  the  Bill  of  Rights,  tlie  work  of  the  great 
"iron  barons"  of  King  John,  and  the  silken  nobles  and  knights  of  Fing  James,  who 
drew  the  rebellious  sword  or  wielded  the  seditious  pen,  to  enforce  and  protect 
their  own  peculiar  rights,  we  owe  it,  that  the  small  spark  of  popular  liberty,  in 
that  day,  was  not  wholly  extinguished,  crushed  out,  in  the  blood  and  darkness, 
and  oppressions  of  the  feudal  ages.  The  Senates  and  Councils  of  Italy,  the  Par- 
liaments of  France,  the  Cortez  of  Spain,  would  have  availed  nothing— the  House 
of  Commons  nothing,  with  its  Pyms  and  Hampdens,  and  Sydneys  and  Russells, 
of  later  times,  had  not  the  patient  and  sturdy  burghers  of  tlie  cities  and  towns, 
while  the  kings  and  barons  of  Europe,  in  deadly  array,  met  the  infidel  hosts,  like 
Sir  Kenneth  and  the  Saracen,  ''under  the  burning  sun  of  Syria,"  slowly,  but 
steadily,  gone  on  increasing  in  wealth,  and  population,  and  power.  By  Uttle  and 
little,  availing  themselves  of  the  necessities  of  the  nobles,  made  urgent  then  by 
the  Crusades,  they  purchased  or  extorted  privilege  upon  privilege,  till  every  ves- 
tige of  their  feudal  servitude  was  swept  away,  and,  in  the  midst  of  absolutism  and 
oppression  elsewliere,  a  select  body  of  freemen,  electing  their  own  officers,  and 
governed  by  their  own  ordinances,  grew  up  to  a  magnitude  and  strength  which, 
too  late,  drew  the  attention  and  hostility  of  barons  and  kings.  It  was  in  these  corpo- 
rations that,  through  the  dark  ages,  the  representative  idea  of  government  was  pre- 
Berved,  wliich,  in  our  times,  and  in  this  country,  has  been  brought  to  so  great  perfec- 
tion. It  was  the  common  council  and  trainbands  of  a  municipal  corporation,  which 
gave  so  great  aid  to  the  cause  of  the  people  in  the  first  great  struggle  between  power 
and  Mberty  in  the  time  of  the  first  Charles  ;  and  it  was  the  revocation  of  the  charter 
of  a  municipality  which  contributed  so  greatly  to  drive  the  second  James  from  his 
throne.  It  was  a  corporate  charter,  too,  which  the  sturdy  freemen  of  Connecti- 
cut, to  save  it  from  destruction,  bid  within  the  rough  and  gnarled,  but  fostering 
bosom  of  the  Charter  Oak.  There  may  have  been  no  "  transcendentahsm"  in  all 
this,  but  there  was  a  mystic  notion,  which  unpelled  the  honest  burghers  and  citi- 
zens of  those  times,  to  hold  even  the  wax  and  the  parchment  of  their  charters  too 
sacred,  for  kings,  and  the  vicegerents  of  kings,  to  touch. 

Nor  is  there  any  thing  in  the  purposes  for  which  these  corporations  are  organ- 
ized, wliich  demands  odium,  or  jealousy  even,  from  the  most  sensitive  lover  of 
liberty.  They  are  but  subdivisions  of  the  government,  established  for  the  con- 
venience of  the  more  compact  communities,  or  particular  consociations  of  citizens. 


554  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

They  derive  all  their  power  from  the  great  body  of  the  people,  represented  in  the 
legislature ;  and  this  power  is  at  any  moment  liable  to  be  taken  away.  Their 
purposes  are  not  the  pursuit  or  aggregation  of  wealtli,  nor  yet  of  political  power; 
but  the  control  and  niauagemeut  of  the  internal  and  municipal  affairs  of  the  citi- 
zens dwelling  within  their  limits.  And  in  all  this  they  are  eminently  democratic, 
acting  through  a  common  council  or  local  legislature,  the  members  of  which  are 
elected  hy  the  citizens,  and,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  more  directly  amenable 
to  their  constituents  than  any  other  class  of  representatives. 


CAMPAIGN    OF    1860. 
Extract  from  Speech  at  Dayton,  May  19,  1S60. 

He  was  not  for  the  North,  nor  for  the  South,  but  for  the  ichoh  country  ;  and  yet, 
in  a  conflict  of  sectional  interests,  he  was  for  the  West  all  the  time.  In  a  little 
■while — even  after  the  present  year,  men  east  of  the  mountains  would  learn  that 
there  was  a  West,  which  to  them  has  heretofore  been  an  "  undiscovered  country." 
Me  hoped  ftnentbj  to  see  the  day  when  we  sh'juld  hear  no  inore  of  sections ;  but  as  long 
as  men  elsewhere  demanded  a  "  united  North,"  and  a  "  united  South."'  he  wanted 
to  see  a  "  united  West."  Still  the  "United  States"  was  a  better  term,  more  pa- 
triotic, more  constitutional,  and  more  glorious  than  any  of  them. 
Referring  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  "  irrepressible  conflict"  speech  of  1858, 
Mr.  Yallaxdigham  proceeded  for  some  time  to  denounce  the  sentiment  of  the 
speech  in  a  vehement  and  irapassionate  manner,  as  revolutionary,  disorganizing, 
subversive  of  the  government,  and  ending  necessarily  in  disunion.  Our  fathers  had 
founded  a  government  expressly  upon  the  compatibility  and  harmony  of  a  Union 
of  States,  "  part  slave,  and  part  free,"  and  whoever  affirmed  the  contrary,  laid  the 
a.xe  at  the  very  root  of  the  Union. 

Extract  from  Speech  at  s.irae  place,  June  30, 1860. 
There  are  now  two  extreme  sectional  parties.  Six  years  ago  the  Abolition  sen- 
timents of  the  free  States  culminated  in  the  Republican  organization.  In  the 
course  of  time  it  has  brought  forth  iU  inevitable  fruit,  in  the  organization,  especially 
in  the  Gulf  or  Cotton  States,  of  an  extreme  Southern  or  pro-slavery  party,  the  off- 
spring, but  the  very  antipode  of  the  liepuUicnn  party.  If  either  of  these  is  suffered 
to  prevail,  the  Union  is  at  an  end.  Even  now  it  is  in  peril  from  mere  conflict  between 
them.  But  the  death  of  the  parent  will  be  the  death  of  the  child.  Kill  the  North- 
ern and  Western  anti-slavery  organization,  the  Republican  party,  and  the  extreme 
Southern  pro-Mavery,  "fire-eating"  organization  of  the  Cotton  States,  will  expire 
in  three  months.  Continue  the  Republican  party — above  all,  put  it  in  power,  and 
the  antagonism  will  grow  till  the  whole  South  will  become  a  unit.  It  is  our  mission 
here  in  Ohio,  as  one  of  the  free  States,  to  conquer  and  crush  out  Northern  and 
Western  sectionalism,  as  this  is  the  especial  enemy  in  our  midst. 


POSITION    ON    THE    WAR;    APRIL,    1S61.* 

Datto.x,  Ohio,  April  17,  1861. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer : 

I  have  a  word  for  the  Republican  press  and  partisans  of  Cincinnati  and  other 
places  abroad,  who  now  daily  falsify  and  misrepresent  mo  and  matters  which  con- 
cern me  here  in  Dayton. 

♦This  card,  written  two  days  after  the  President's  Proclamation  of  War,  is  referred  to  in  the 
letter  tu  Uendrickaon,  ante,  page  ZQ2. 


SUPPLEMENT.  555 

My  position  in  regard  to  this  civil  war,  which  the  Lincoln  Administration  haa 
inaugurated,  was  long  since  taken,  is  well  known,  and  will  be  adhered  to  to  the  end. 
Let  that  be  understood.  I  have  added  nothing  to  it,  subtracted  notbiug  from  it, 
said  nothing  about  it  publicly,  since  the  war  began.  I  know  well  tiiat  I  am  right, 
and  that  in  a  little  while  the  "  sober  second  thought  of  the  people''  will  dissipate 
the  present  sudden  and  fleeting  public  madness,  and  will  demand  to  know  why 
thirty  millions  of  i:)eople  are  butchering  each  other  in  civil  war,  and  will  arrest  it 
speedily.  But,  meantime,  should  my  own  State  be  invaded,  or  threatened  with 
invasion,  as  soon  as  it  may  be,  then,  as  a  true  native-born  son  of  Ohio,  acknowl- 
edging my  first  allegiance  to  be  to  her,  I  will  aid  in  defending  her  to  the  last  ex- 
tremity, asking  no  questions.  Whoever  shall  refuse  then,  or  hesitate,  will  be  a 
traitor  and  a  dastard.  And  this  same  rule  I  apply  as  well  to  the  people  of  Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky,  or  Missouri,  as  to  any  of  the  free  States,  North  or  West. 

As  to  myself:  No  threats  have  been  made  to  me  personallj' ;  none  within  my 
hearing;  no  violence  offered ;  no  mob  any  where ;  none  will  be;  nobody  afraid  of 
any,  and  every  statement  or  rumor  in  regard  to  me  circulated  orally,  or  published 
in  the  Republican  press,  is  basely  idle  and  false.  And  now  let  me  add,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  cowardly  slanderers  of  Cincinnati  or  elsewhere  who  libel  me  daily, 
that  if  tbey  have  any  business  with  me,  I  can  be  found  every  day  and  at  any  time, 
either  at  home,  or  upon  the  streets  of  Dayton. 


PRIVATE  CONFERENCE  ON  THE  WAR  AND  fSURPATION,  PROPOSED. 

Datton,  Ohio,  J/<iy  'th,  1861. 
Mt  Dear  Sir  : — The  almost  unanimous  uprising  of  the  people  in  the  North  and 
West — called  forth  by  the  fatal  error,  as  I  thiuk,  that  the  purpose  of  the  Lincoln 
Administration  is  to  preserve  the  Union,  and  that  it  can  be  preserved  by  civil  war — 
is  being  abused  to  the  utter  destruction  of  the  Constitution  and  the  inauguration 
of  a  military  despotism.  The  first  proclamation  was,  at  least,  of  doubtful  legality ; 
the  blockade  still  more  so ;  but  the  astounding  proclamation  of  May  3d,  under- 
taking by  Executive  authority  alone  to  "raise  and  support  armies,"  and  to  "  pro- 
vide and  maintain  a  navy,"  discloses  at  once,  the  bold  conspiracy  to  usurp  all 
power  into  the  hands  of  the  Executive — since  a  Congress  of  partisans  surrounded 
by  30,000  soldiers,  can  but  be  the  tool  of  the  President.  No  king  of  England, 
since  James  II.,  would  have  dared  attempt  such  a  usurpation :  England,  at  no 
time,  since  the  reign  of  Henry  YIII.,  would  have  submitted  to  it.  And  all  this 
within  twenty  days  I  If  there  be  any  spirit  of  liberty  left,  is  it  not  time  to  arouse 
and  strike  a  blow  to  rescue  the  Republic  from  an  impending  military  despotism? 
If  you  agree  with  me,  can  we  not  have  a  conference  of  the  friends  of  Constitu- 
tional and  limited  government — of  true  popular  government — say  at  Chillicothe  on 
the  15th  of  this  month  (May),  to  concert  some  measures  to  arouse  the  people  to  a 
sense  of  the  danger  which  presses  upon  us  ?     I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  from  you. 


LETTERS     TO     SARIN     HOUGH;    1861. 

Datton,  Ohio,  April  26. 
Rev.  Sabin  Hough  : 

Dear  Sir: — I  thank  you  most  cordially  for  your  letter  of  the  24th.     It  strength 

ens  me  in  the  truth  and  right     Its  words  are  fitly  and  truly  spoken.     This  folly, 


556 


YALLAXDIGHAM  S    SPEECHES. 


and  madness,  atid  wickedness,  must  soou  have  an  end.  "  IIow  long,  0,  Lord?" 
We  shall  see.  It  is  written  that  "  blessed  are  the  peace-makers,"  and  yet  the 
whole  church  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  is  maddening  and  thirsting  for  blood — the 
blood  of  our  brethren — preaching,  praying,  fi'jliUng.  Was  ever  people  before  de- 
livered over  to  such  folly  and  wickeduess?  Truly  you  have  said  that  it  is  ''from 
hell  and  not  from  Heaven." 

I  thank  you  for  your  pamphlet.  I  have  distributed  aU  but  one  copy  for  myself. 
I  send  you  a  copy  of  my  speech  of  February  2Cf,  1861.  But  all  is  over  now.  It  is 
too  late  for  any  thing  except  peaceable  separation. 

Daytox,  April  SO,  1861. 
Rev.  Saeix  Hough,  Cincinnati,  Ohio: 

DearSik: — I  have  just  received  yours,. and  concur  with  you  heartily.  The 
storm  is  passing,  and  I  hope  reason  may  return,  and  pedce  for  the  present  with  it. 
Eeyond  that  I  see  nothing  but  separation,  first  of  the  free  States  and  slave,  and 
then  of  tlie  West  from  the  East,  and  then — I  know  not  what.  I  have  no  interest 
in  the  Empire,  but  the  editor  is  one  of  my  best  friends,  and  I  w"iIL  adopt  your  sug- 
gestion gladly.  On  Sunday  night  in  Wesley  Chapel  (Methodist  Episcopal),  divine 
services  were  concluded  by  singing  the  "  Star  Spangled  Banner."  In  the  Presby- 
terian (Dr.  Thomas's),  an  "Ode  to  Liberty"  (negro  hberty)  was  sung  by  the  choir, 
first  being  regularly  given  out  by  the  Doctor  from  the  pulpit.     What  next  ? 

I  sliall  watch  the  first  favorable  chance  to  move  publicly  for  peace,  and  restora 
tion  if  possible. 

Dayton,  Ouio,  September  4, 1861. 
Rev.  Sabin  Hough,  Cincinndti,  Ohio: 

My  Dear  Sir: — I  thank  you  for  your  letter.  I  never  received  any  invitation 
to  speak  at  the  place  you  mention — so  their  labor  was  .ill  lost.  But  when  I  under- 
take to  speak,  I  shall  so  arrange  as  to  succeed. 

Truly,  we  have  fallen  upon  evil  times.  But  I  believe,  as  God  rules,  that  all  will 
come  ri^ht  in  due  season. 


AFFAIR    AT    CAMP    UPTON,    VIRGINIA;    1861. 

Telegraphic  dispatch  of  the  "Associated  Press"  to  the  Wasliington,  Baltimore,  and 

Philadelphia  papers. 

Alexandria,  July  T,  1861. — Mr.  Vallandigham,  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio, 
visited  the  Ohio  regiments  to-day.  While  in  the  camp  of  the  first  regiment,  a  dis- 
position was  shown  by  many  to  oust  him,  and,  notwithstanding  the  nerve  and 
courage  shown  by  Mr.  Vallandigham,  it  is  probable  they  would  have  succeeded, 
but  for  the  protection  aflbrded  him  by  the  Dayton  companies,  and  a  pass  from 
General  Scott.  He  finally  retired  to  the  camp  of  the  second  regiment,  after  de- 
claring himself  as  good  a  Union  man  as  any  of  them,  and  expressing  his  scorn  for 
the  mob  spirit  shown  by  his  fellow-citizens. 


i  MASON    AND    SLIDELL. THE    "  TRENt"    AFFAIR. 

On  the  16th  of  December,  1861,  Mr.  Vallandigham  offered  certain  resolutions 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  relating  to  the  seizure  of  Messrs.  Mason  and 
SUdell,  on  board  the  British  Mail  Steamer  "  Trent."  Upon  his  arrival  in  Canada, 
in  July,  18G3,  he  was  assailed  by  a  Toronto  paper,  and  hia  Resolutions,  and  the 


suppLE:\rEis"T.  557 

motives  in  offering  tliem,  both  misrepresented — the  false  copy  of  the  Resolutions 
which  appears  in  that  farrago  of  stuff  and  falsehood,  "  Putnam's  Rebellion  Rec- 
ord," being  substituted  for  the  official  copy.  The  following  answer  to  the  assault, 
explains  sufficiently  the  character  and  objects  of  the  Resolutions.  It  is  taken 
from  the  Toronto  Leader  : 

"Mr.  Vallandigham,  let  it  be  remembered,  was  an  American  Representative,  and 
had  the  right,  and  was  under  the  obligation  to  maintain  the  honor  and  dignity  of 
his  own  country,  and  was  only  bound  as  a  statesman,  not  to  indulge  in  illiberal 
and  abusive  language  towards  a  foreign  government.  On  the  first  day  of  the  ses- 
sion, December  2,  1862,  Owen  Lovejoy,  of  Illinois,  an  ultra  Abolition  leader  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  ofiered  this  resolution :  '  That  the  thanks  of  Congress 
are  due,  and  are  hereby  tendered,  to  Captain  "Wilkes,  of  the  United  States  Navy, 
for  liis  brave,  adroit,  and  patriotic  conduct  in  the  arrest  and  detention  of  the  traitors 
James  M.  Masoij  and  John  ShdelL'  A  little  while  after,  Mr.  Colfax,  of  Indiana, 
another  Administration  leader,  offered  a  resolution,  proposing  to  confine  Mr.  Mason 
in  the  '  cell  of  a  convicted  felon.'  And  on  the  same  day  a  similar  resolution  was 
ofiered  by  Mr.  Odell,  a  violent  'war  man,'  as  to  Mr.  ShdelL  All  these  were 
adopted  without  objection.  About  the  middle  of  the  month,  the  steamer  brought 
the  news  of  tlie  extraordinary  excitement  in  England,  and  of  the  belligerent  de- 
termination of  the  British  government.  Mr.  Vallandigham  perceiving  that  the 
very  men  who  had  so  hastily  and  valorously  indorsed  the  act  of  Captain  Wilkes, 
would  now  back  down  ingloriously,  ofiered  the  preamble  and  resolution  quoted  by 
the  Globe — every  substantive  word  of  the  former  being  quoted  from  the  language 
of  Secretary  Wells,  or  of  Lovejoy  and  Colfax. 

"  In  ofl'ering  the  resolution,  Mr.  Vallandigham  said  he  '  would  adhere  to  it  to  the 
last,  though  he  regretted,  and  would  have  opposed,  if  he  had  had  the  power,  and 
prevented  the  Adiuinistration  and  the  House  from  the  folly  of  taking  ajjosition  in  ad- 
vance upon,  the  act  of  Cajytain  Wilkes. 

"Again,  on  the  7th  of  January,  18G3,  after  the  surrender,  Mr.  Vallandigham 
addressed  the  House  briefly  on  the  same  subject,  declaring  that  the  Administration 
had  '  struttiid  insolently  into  a  quarrel  without  right,  and  basely  crept  out  of  it  with- 
out honor.'  And  further  on,  he  denounced  '  the  rash  act  of  Captain  Wilkes,  and 
the  yet  rasher  indorsement  of  the  Administration  and  the  country.''  And  the  same 
day,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Hutchins,  he  said: 

"  '  I  did  not  at  the  time  approve  of  the  resolution  of  thanks  submitted  by  the 
gentleman  from  Illinois  (Mr.  Lovejoy),  and  I  looked  tiround  me  in  anxious  sus- 
pense to  observe  whether  there  was  courage  or  statesmanship  enough  on  the  other 
side  of  the  House  to  interpose  an  objection  to  it ;  but  there  was  none.  I  offered 
none.  Had  I  objected  the  cry  would  have  again  gone  forth — '  Eehold  the  enemy 
of  his  country;  always  against  herl'  I  had  no  responsibility  that  required  me 
to  interfere,  and  I  did  not.  Then  was  the  time,  so  far  as  this  House  was  concern- 
ed, to  have  paused ;  and,  so  far  as  regards  this  Administration,  it  was  their  duty 
to  have  acted  when  Captain  Wilkes  first  anchored  the  San  Jacinto  at  Fortress 
Monroe.  The  law  of  the  case,  on  the  12th  of  November  last,  was  precisely  what 
the  law  was  on  the  27lh  of  December  following.  The  facts  were  just  as  well 
known  and  understood  four-and-twenty  hours  after  the  arrival  of  these  men  upon 
our  coast,  as  they  were  understood  and  known  when  the  dispatch  of  the  Secretary 
was  written  and  the  surrender  made.  Honor  would  have  been  saved,  and  a  savor 
of  grace  imparted  by  a  voluntary  discharge  at  the  first.' 

"  Mr.  Vallandigham  has,  at  all  proper  times  and  places,  claimed  and  exercised  the 
right  to  criticise  and  condemn  any  of  the  acts  or  public  history  of  Great  Britain, 


558  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

just  as  he  has  those  of  his  own  country;  but  he  has  never  had  occasion,  and  least 
of  all  in  the  Trent  case,  to  '  exhaust  the  whole  vocabulary  of  invective  against 
England." 

"An  AiiERiCAX. 
"  CLiFTOiT  House,  C.  VT.,  Aug.  7,  1863." 


-PATRIOTISM. 
Reply  to  Assaalta  in  the  Hoase  of  Representatives,  Jannary  7, 1862. 

Sir,  if  I  am  charged  with  the  desire  of  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  by  maintaining  the  honor  and  dignity  of  my  own  country  against 
a  foreign  foe,  I  hurl  back  the  charge  defiantly  into  the  teeth  of  all  concerned, 
directly  or  indirectly,  openly  or  tacitly,  in  the  resolutions  of  the'  first  day  of  the 
eession.  It  is  too  late  now,  sir,  to  meet  me  with  this  mean  and  beggarly  insinua- 
tion. I  have  had  enough  of  it  outside  of  this  House,  and  will  submit  to  none  of 
it  here. 

As  to  my  record  at  the  extra  session,  or  during  the  present  session,  it  remains, 
and  will  remain.  I  do  neither  retract  one  sentiment  that  I  have  uttered,  nor 
■would  I  obliterate  a  single  vote  which  I  have  given.  I  speak  of  the  record,  as  it 
will  appear  hereafter,  and,  indeed,  stands  now  upon  the  Journals  of  this  House, 
and  in  the  Congressional  Globe.  And  there  is  no  other  record,  thank  God,  and 
no  act,  or  word,  or  thought  of  mine,  and  never  has  been  from  the  beginning,  in 
public  or  in  private,  of  which  any  patriot  ought  to  be  ashamed.  Sir,  it  is  the 
record,  as  I  made  it,  and  as  it  exists  here  to-day ;  and  not,  as  a  mendacious  and 
shameless  press  have  attempted  to  make  it  up  for  me.  Let  us  see  who  will  grov 
tired  of  this  record  first.  Consistency,  firmness,  and  sanity  in  the  midst  of  gen- 
eral madness — these  make  up  my  ofiFence.  But  "  Time,  the  avenger,"  seta  all  things 
even ;  and  I  abide  his  leisure. 

[After  quoting  a  part  of  his  remarks  of  July  12.  1361  (ante  p.  32-1),  Mr.  T.  proceeds :] 

Sir,  this  was  before  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  and  you  voted  my  amendment  down 
almost  unanimously.  But  that  was  my  position  then  :  it  was  my  record  in  the 
midst  of  the  crisis  of  the  Revolution.  It  is  true,  sir,  that  in  the  madness  of  the 
hour,  amid  the  bitter  and  relentless  persecution  of  every  man  who  would  not  bow 
the  knee  to  the  party  in  power,  and  confess  unlimited  confidence  in  it,  and  prom- 
ise unhesitating  support  of  all  that  it  demanded,  usurpations  of  power,  breaches 
of  tht  Constitution,  amj  all,  no  man  heeded  it  then:  and  in  common  witli  thou- 
sands of  as  good  patriots  as  ever  lived  in  this  or  any  country — men  who  would 
yield  up  the  last  drop  of  their  blood  in  the  defence  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  this  Government  as  our  fathers  made  it.  and  for 
the  honor  of  the  -'Stars  and  Stripes,"  emblematic  of  the  principles  upon  which  it 
was  founded — I  was  hunted  and  hounded  in  every  State,  and  by  every  press,  and 
upon  every  husting.s,  by  cowards  and  slanderers,  as  an  enemy  to  my  country. 

To-day  the  magnitude  and  true  character  of  the  war  stand  confessed,  and  its 
real  purposes  begin  to  be  revealed :  and  I  am  justified,  or  soon  will  be  justified, 
by  thousands,  who  a  Uttle  while  ago  condemned  me.  But  I  appealed  then,  as  I 
appeal  now,  alike  to  the  near  and  to  the  distant  future ;  and  by  the  judgment  of  that 
impartial  tribunal,  even  in  the  present  generation.  I  will  abide  j  or  if  my  name 
and  memory  shall  fade  away  out  of  the  record  of  these  times,  then  will  these 
calumnies  perish  with  them. 


SUrPLEilENT.  559 

FIN'ASCES. TAXATION. 

Bemarks  on  the  Direct  Tai  Besolntion,  in  the  ^onse  of  EepresentaiiTes,  January  15, 1562L 

Before  I  yield  the  floor  to  the  gentleman  from  Xew  York,  allow  me  to  express 
the  hope  that  all  measures  relating  to  finance  mav  be  reported  at  the  earhest  prac- 
^cable  moment,  and  then  postponed  to  a  fixed  day  ahead,  so  that  ample  time  may 
be  allowed  for  their  consideration.  For  great,  sir.  as  this  civil  war  is,  imminent, 
too,  as  the  danger  of  foreign  complications,  they  are,  both  of  them,  as  nothing  in 
comparison  wiiii  the  daily  accumulating  and  most  disastrous  financial  embarrass- 
ments, which  are  pressing  now  upon  us  on  every  side — not  for  the  present  moment 
only,  but  for  a  century,  it  may  be. 

The  war  must  come  to  an  end,  sooner  or  later  :  and  in  one  way  or  another  our 
foreign  complications  will  be  adjusted,  with  or  without  war,  which  could  not  last 
long ;  but  the  errors  or  crimes  of  the  financial  contrivances  and  enAarrassments 
of  to-day.  and  their  results,  will  endure  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  of  those 
who  shall  come  after  us. 

"While,  then,  we  ought  to  begin  this  work  at  once,  let  us  not  hurry  over  it.  For 
twenty -six  years  the  pestilent  and  execrable  question  of  slavery,  in  every  form,  has 
been  debated  in  this  House  for  months  in  succession.  Abolition  petitions,  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  the  Compromise  of  1850,  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  the  Kansas 
troubles,  and  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  each  in  turn  consumed  the  time  of  the 
House  for  weeks  together.  And  even  now,  with  a  pubhc  debt  already  of  some 
seven  hundred  milhons  of  dollars,  increasing,  too,  at  the  rate  of  two  millions  a 
day ;  with  an  empty  treasury,  and  no  means  to  replenish  it :  with  every  fountain  of 
revenue  nearly  dried  up,  and  even  tliat  last  resource  of  the  inevitable  bankrupt — 
borrowing — cut  off ;  with  ail  these  things  staring  us  full  in  the  face,  nevertheless 
the  objects  of  the  war,  the  conduct  of  the  war,  Emancipation,  Confiscation.  Ball's 
BluSr,  the  Trent  afiair.  Government  contracts,  the  Cooly  trade,  the  Coast  Survey, 
the  franking  privilege,  or  whatever  else  may  happen  to  be  the  especial  question 
of  the  hour — all  of  them  highly  important,  certainly,  and  worthy  of  due  consider- 
ation, are  debated  for  days  at  a  time,  and  even  the  best-abused  man  in  the  House 
finds  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  an  audience. 

Let  us  prepare,  then,  at  once  for  the  great  questions  of  finance  which  are  be- 
fore us ;  but  let  a  time  be  fixed,  and  let  as  debate  them  day  after  day,  at  length, 
and  not  wait  till  the  last  moment,  and  then  hurry  them  through,  as  two  bills  upon 
the  same  subject  have  already  been,  without  a  moment's  eonsideratiom  The 
country  will  be  content  if  they  only  see  that  we  have  gone  at  the  business  in 
earnest,  and  will  not  grudge  to  ns  an  hour  spent  in  legitimate  debate.  Let  the 
people  understand,  truly  and  honestly,  the  real  character  and  true  extent  of  the 
burdens  we  impose  upon  them,  and  know  and  feel  that  we  have  faithfully  and  dili- 
gently done  the  best  possible,  every  way.  to  protect  their  interests,  and  the  dread 
spectre  of  Repudiatios  wih  never  be  evoked.  Let  us  waste  no  time  in  this  busi- 
ness ;  but  let  us,  at  the  same  time,  advance  slowly,  understanding  every  step  of 
our  journey,  and  then  there  will  be  no  steps  to  retrace.  Sir.  this  is  immeasurably 
the  most  momentous  of  all  the  questions  which  are  just  now  before  us ;  and  who- 
ever fails  to  meet  and  grapple  with  it  boldly,  and  to  the  full  extent,  is  a  disunion- 
ist;  for  batikruptcy  is  disunion  and  dissolution  in  the  worst  form,  and  will  bring  the 
war  to  an  instant  end.  not  as  I  would  have  it,  by  adjustment,  fair  compromise,  and 
a  restoration  of  the  Union,  but  by  inamediate,  eternal,  and  ignominious  separation. 


r»60  vallandigtiam's  speeches. 

Jy  IS  not  now  anj-  longer  a  question  of  the  "  viporons  prosecution  of  the  war,"  as 
;hp  phrase  goes,  but  absolutely  one  of  simple  financial  salvation.  Taxation,  heavy 
taxation,  but  upon  sound  principles,  and  in  the  right  way,  can  alone  now  save  us. 
I  hope  I  am  not  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy.  I  know,  of  course,  sir, 
th.'it  I  cannot  have  the  ear  of  those  who  think  that  "  no  good  can  come  -Jut  of 
Nazareth."  But  I  address  myself  to  wiser  men.  and  express  again  the  hope  that 
these  measure's  of  finance  may  be  introduced  at  once,  but  postponed  to  a  day  cej 
tain,  distant  enough  to  allow  the  amplest  examination  of  them  in  advance;  a 
that  afterwards  they  may  be  considered  and  discussed  at  length,  and  as  their  im- 
mense magnitude  and  importance  demand.  If  we  are  not  competent  to  this  task, 
and  are  expected  to  take  just  whatsoever  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  on  the  one 
hand,  or  the  banks  upon  the  other,  or  both  combined,  may  choose  to  submit,  let  us 
resign,  and  go  home,  to  the  end  that  abler  and  fitter  men  may  be  sent  here  to  fill  the 
seats  which  we  dishonor.  But  the  work  will  be  more  than  lialf  doxe  whenever 
we  shall  have  boldly,  manfully,  and  honestly  taken  hold  of  it. 


:R 


PROSCRIPTION. REDRESS. 


After  the  elections  in  the  autumn  of  18G2,  Mr.  VALLAxraGifAM  made  many 
speeches  at  Democratic  "  Celebrations."  None  of  them  was  reported,  except  in 
biief  abstract.  The  following  is  a  summary  of  one,  made  at  I'ambridge  City,  Indiana, 
November  15,  18C2.  Mr.  V.  had  spoken  at  Centre  ville,  Indiana,  near  Cambridge,  on 
the  20th  of  Octoler,  and  had  that  night,  on  his  way  home,  been,  by  order  of  Gov- 
ernor Morton',  ''dogged"  at  Richmond,  Indiana,  by  the  United  States  Marshal  for 
that  State,  one  Rose  Garland.  Alluding  to  this,  Mr.  Yallaxcigiiam  began  thus- 
•"  Is  the  Marshal  of  Indiana  here  to-day  ?  Are  his  minions  about?  Is  his  com- 
mittee here  again?  "Why  liest  thou  hid  now,  0  sweet-scented  Rose  ?  Lift  up  thy 
deUcate  head,  thou  daughter  of  a  mild  sky. 

'•'Quid  lates  dudiun,  RosaV 

"Why  has  not  Morton  tlireatened  to  deck  me  this  time,  also,  with  a  gvland  of 
roses?  Ah!  I  remember  me,  elections  have  been  held,  and  the  People  have 
spoken.  Their  voice,  as  the  voice  of  many  waters,  has  been  heard.  It  has  reach- 
ed the  palaces  at  "Washington,  and  Indianapolis,  and  Columbus,  and  penetrated 
even  their  darkened  and  deaf  recesses.  Lincoln  and  Morton  have  heard  it,  and 
their  knees  have  smitten  together.  Tod  heard  it.  The  '  Democratic  thunder' 
reached  his  ears;  he  knew  it,  and  his  'backbone'  softened,  and  shrivelled,  and 
shrunk  before  it.  Sic  semper  tyrannis.  Let  us  rejoice.  The  people  are  once  more 
masters,  and  henceforth  no  more  shall  the  rights  of  the  citizen  and  tlie  courtesies 
and  hospitalities  of  States  be  violated.  The  occupation  of  marshals  and  detec- 
tives, and  spies  and  informers,  and  affidavit-makers,  is  gone,  never  to  return;  and 
their  offices,  at  least  the  official  existence  of  them,  one  and  all,  will  soon  cease. 
'  Teach  me  the  measure  of  my  days,'  says  the  Psalmist ;  and  I  commend  the 
pious  redection  to  Lincoln,  and  Morton,  and  Tod,  and  ail  others  under  and  around, 
or  like  them,  who  have  abused  power,  and  outraged  the  peoijlo.  The  -Ith  of 
March,  1865,  will  end  their  days.  Habeas  corpus  is  here.  Arbitrary  arrests  are 
at  an  end.  The  people  of  New  York  have  restored  the  great  charter  of  liberty 
on  the  Cth  of  November,  and  the  people  of  Ohio  and  Indiana  on  the  14th  day  of 
October.     lu  the  midst  of  a  despotism  worse  than  that  of  Austria,  the  people  of 


SUPPLEMENT.  561 

these  great  States  have  risen  in  their  might,  and  pulled  down  the  temple  of  Abo- 
litionism, never  to  rise  again.  Not  a  vestige  of  it  will  be  left.  Its  site  will  be 
ploughed  over,  and  salt  sowed,  dfter  the  custom  of  the  Romans,  upon  the  spot 
where  it  stood. 

In  the  contest  just  closed,  while  the  sky  was  dark,  and  the  storm  was  gathering 
— '^hen  the  old  Democratic  ship  was  struggling  witli  the  billows — men  who  had 
professed  to  be  leaders,  who  had  been  foremost  when  the  sky  was  briglit  and  the 
wind  blew  fair,  deserted  their  posts.  It  was  always  so.  Some  were  terrified,  and 
fled ;  others,  ambitious  men,  who  would  secure  power  dishonorably,  fled  ;  but  the 
people,  always  true  to  themselves,  retired  to  their  homes,  to  their  farms,  and  their 
workshops  and  their  offices,  in  tLe  hour  of  trial,  to  commune  with  their  sober 
thoughts,  and  they  came  forth  at  the  appointed  time,  and  righted  the  foundering 
ship.  They  achieved  a  victory  surprising  even  to  themselves,  and  perfectly  as- 
tounding to  the  Abolitionists. 

The  railroads,  the  banks,  the  telegraph  lines,  the  express  companies,  and  an- 
other element  that  had  of  late  defiled  itself  in  the  land — the  Churches — were  all 
arrayed  against  the  people.  The  pure  altars  of  Christianity  were  polluted,  and 
the  disciples  had  huckstered  in  the  political  markets.  The  Churches  had  departed 
from  the  doctrines  of  Christ,  and  Him  crucified,  and  taken  up  the  Negro,  and  him 
glorified  I  There  will  be  no  Union,  no  peace,  no  hope,  no  country,  until  you  drive 
out  those  who  have  defiled  the  temple  of  the  Saviour  of  mankind,  and  restore  the 
gospel  in  its  purity.  It  is  time  to  abandon  the  Abolition  churches.  Refuse  them 
support.     It  is  time  to  speak  out. 

Mr.  TvLLANDiGHAM  Said  he  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  but  of  one  who  did  not 
di.sgrace  his  calling.  He  had,  of  late,  quoted  freely  from  the  Scriptures  in  his 
speeches.  Some  of  his  friends  remarked  it,  and  he  told  them  he  had  n^^t  attended 
church  lately,  and,  consequently,  he  had  had  time  to  examine  the  Bible.  In  his 
closet  he  could  find  its  teachings,  but  not  in  the  pulpit. 

Proscription  had  been  another  means  used.  Men  were  proscribed  in  everyway. 
His  advice  was  to  meet  proscription  with  proscription.  We  have  as  much  money 
as  they  have — at  least,  honestly.  We  have  not  as  many  contractors,  nor  as  heavy 
amounts  of  stealings  hoarded  up,  but  we  cons.ume  as  much  as  they  do,  eat  as 
much,  wear  as  much,  and,  by  honest  toil,  can  pay  for  as  much.  Proscription  is  a 
game  that  two  can  plaj'-  at,  and  they  will  be  the  first  to  tire  of  it. 

Over  all  these  means,  freely  and  unscrupulously  used,  we  beliold  the  sublime 
spectaele  of  twenty  millions  of  freemen  making  their  voices  heard,  even  in  the 
"White  House.  Abraham  has  heard  it,  the  Cabinet  have  heard  it,  and  the  govern- 
ors of  States  have  heard  it 

Mr.  Yallandigham  then  counselled  his  Democratic  friends  to  stand  by  the  laws, 
to  seek  redress  through  the  courts,  and  administer  that  severest  of  rebukes,  to 
the  corrupt — "exclusion  from  office."  We  will  get  satisfaction  for  our  wrongs 
through  the  law.  He  called  upon  every  man  who  had  been  unlawfully  imprison- 
ed in  the  walls  of  a  bastile,  to  seek  for  redress  through  the  forms  of  law,  as  he' 
valued  himself  and  the  liberties  of  his  countrymen.  England  has  given  us  ex- 
amples of  illegal  arrest — these  usurpers  cannot  even  claim  the  merit  of  originality 
for  their  tyranny — she  has  also  given  us  examples  of  the  punishment  of  the 
oflfenders.  In  England,  the  person  of  a  subject  is  inviolate.  An  Englishman's 
house  or  home  is  his  castle.  Wo  have  a  notable  instance  of  what  an  English- 
man's liberty  for  one  hour  is  considered  worth  by  an  English  jury.  A  Secretary 
of  State  arrested  a  British  subject,  and  imprisoned  him  for  one  hour.  At  the  enj 
of  that  time  he  was  released.  He  brought  suit  against  "my  Lord,"  and  recov- 
36 


5(32  VAI.LA^'DIGHAJl's    SPEECHES. 

ered  a  verdict  for  $5,000.  Lord  Cliief-.Tustice  Tratt,  aflcr-tvard  Lord  Camden — tlio 
advocate  of  the  cause  of  tlio  Colonies,  the  friend  of  America  in  its  youth — made 
tlie  memorable  declaration,  in  tiiis  case  :  "  None  "but  an  English  jury  can  estimate 
the  value  of  an  Eii[rlishmau's  liberty  for  one  hour."  An  Indiana  jury  may  be  able 
to  make  a  like  estimate.  Tliat  is  the  way  we  should  and  will  have  satisfaction. 
The  people  have  spoken — they  must  be  heard,  and  will  be  heard.  "We  will  have 
the  Union  as  it  was,  the  Constitution  as  it  is.  and  tlie  ncji^roes  where  they  are." 

Mr.  Vall.vndighaji  said  that  the  campaign  had  only  just  begun.  It  must  be  kept 
up.  We  have  a  wily  and  unscrupulous  antagonism  to  contend  with.  Tlie  good 
old  times  will  return.  He  did  believe  in  the  possibility,  nay,  the  probability,  of  the 
restoration  of  the  Union  as  it  was.  We  have  commenced  the  work  here,  with  the 
ballot-box ;  with  it  we  have  smitten  the  Philistines  hip  and  thigh.  The  people 
of  the  South,  after  a  little  while,  will,  by  the  same  instrumentality,  put  down  the 
Secessionists  there,  as  we  have  the  Abolitionists  here,  and  peace  and  union  will 
once  more  smile  upon  the  land.  That  is  the  sentiment  in  the  ranks  of  both 
armies,  and  if  you  would  to-day  put  ballots  in  the  hands  of  the  private  soldiers 
of  the  North  and  South,  the  agitators  and  leaders,  wlio  are  forcing  streams  of 
blood  to  flow,  would  be  effectually  put  down.  He  related  several  instances  of  this 
feeling  in  the  army,  a^d  concluded  with  an  elegant  peroration,  which  was  received 
— as  the  main  parts  of  his  speech  had  been,  throughout— by  thunders  of  ap- 
plause. . 


PEACE    RESOLUTIONS. 


On  the  ICth  of  December,  18G2,  Mr.  Vallandigiiam  introduced  the  following  resolutions  into 
the  House  of  Kcpresentutivos  ;  they  were  postponed  for  debate  : 

^' Jicsolved,  ].  That  the  Union  as  it  was  must  be  restored  and  maintained  forever, 
under  the  Constitution  as  it  is — the  fifth  article,  providing  for  amendments,  in- 
cluded. 

"  2.  That  no  final  treaty  of  peace,  ending  the  prcseni:  civil  war,  can  bo  permitted 
to  be  made  hy  the  Executive,  or  any  other  person  in  the  ciril  or  military  service  of 
the  United  States,  on  any  other  basis  than  the  integrity  and  entirety  of  tlie  Federal 
Union,  and  of  the  States  composing  the  same  as  at  the  beginning  of  hostilities, 
and  upon  that  basis  peace  ought  immediately  to  be  made. 

"  3.  That  the  Government  can  never  permit  armed  or  hostile  intervention  by  any 
foreign  power,  in  regard  to  the  present  civil  war. 

"  4.  That  the  unhappy  civil  war  in  which  we  are  engaged  was  waged,  in  the 
beginning,  professedly,  "not  in  any  spirit  of  oppression,  or  for  any  purpose 
of  conquest  or  subjugation,  or  purpose  of  overthrowing  or  interfering  with  the 
rights  or  established  institutions  of  the  States,  but  to  defend  and  maintain  the 
supremacy  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  preserve  the  Union,  with  all  the  dignity, 
equality,  and  rights  of  the  several  States  unimpaired,"  and  was  so  understood  and 
accepted  by  the  people,  and  especially  by  the  army  and  navy  of  ithe  United  States ; 
and  that,  therefore,  whoever  shall  pervert,  or  attempt  to  pervert,  tlie  same  to  a  war 
of  conquest  and  subjugation,  or  for  the  overthrowing  or  interfering  with  tlje 
rights  or  established  institutions  of  any  of  the  States,  and  to  abolish  slavery 
therein,  or  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  or  impairing  the  dignity,  equality,  or 
rights  of  any  of  the  States,  will  be  guilty  of  a  flagrant  breach  of  public  faith,  and 
of  a  high  crime  against  the  Constitution  and  the  Union. 


SUPPLEMENT.  563 

"5.  That  whoever  shall  propose,  by  Federal  authority,  1o  extinguish  any  of  the 
States  of  the  Union,  or  to  declare  any  of  them  extinguished,  and  to  establish  terri- 
torial governments,  or  pernianeut  military  governments  within  tlie  same,  will  be 
deserving  of  the  censure  of  this  House  and  of  the  country. 

"  6.  That  whoever  shall  attempt  to  establish  a  dictatorship  in  the  United  States, 
thereby  superseding  or  suspending  the  constitutional  authorities  of  the  Union,  or 
to  clothe  the  President  or  any  other  ofBoer,  civil  or  military,  with  dictatorial  or 
arbitrary  power,  will  be  guOty  of  a  high  crime  against  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union,  and  public  liberty." 

On  the  22d  of  the  same  month,  Mr.  Vallandigham  oflfered  the  following,  which,  also,  went 
over  for  debate : 

"  Resolved,  That,  this  House  earnestly  desire  that  the  most  speedy  and  effectual 
measures  be  taken  for  restoring  peace  in  America,  and  that  no  time  maybe  lost 
in  proposing  an  immediate  cessation  of  hostilities,  in  order  to  the  speedy  settlement 
of  the  unhappy  controversies  which  brought  about  this  unnecessary  and  injurious 
civil  war,  by  just  and  adequate  security  against  the  return  of  Uke  calamities  in 
time  to  come ;  and  this  House  desire  to  ofler  the  most  earnest  assurances  to  the 
country,  that  they  will  in  due  time  cheerfully  co-operate  with  the  Executive  and 
the  States  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  by  such  explicit  and  most  solemn 
amendments  and  provisions  of  the  Constitution  as  may  be  found  necessary  for 
securing  the  rights  of  the  several  States  and  sections  within  the  Union,  under  th^' 
Constitutiou."  * 

On  the  next  day,  Mr.  V.  briefly  referred  to  the  foregoing  resolution,  as  follows : 

"  The  resolution  which  I  offered  yesterday,  and  which  lies  over  for  debate,  was 
originally  part  of  the  series  submitted  by  me  some  time  since,  and  which,  as  after- 
ward modified,  were  postponed  tiU  the  6th  of  January.  I  did  not  offer  it  at  the 
same  time  with  the  others,  because  I  desired  a  separate  vote  upon  them ;  and 
through  the  kindness  of  the  member  from  Illinois  (Mr.  Lovejoy)  and  his  friends 
upon  the  other  side  of  the  House,  my  desire  was  promptly  gratified,  just  as  I  anti- 
cipated. The  resolutions  were  laid  upon  the  table  by  a  strict  party  vote,  and  thus 
the  record  for  the  great  hereafter  made  up,  and  I  am  content. 

"And  now  let  me  add  that  the  resolution  of  yesterday  is  but  an  almost  exact 
transcript  of  an  amendment  to  the  address  in  answer  to  the  King's  speech,  pro- 
posed in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  18th  of  November,  1777,  by  the  Marquis 
of  Granby,  and  supported  by  Lord  John  Cavendish,  Mr.  Burke,  and  the  other 
British  patriots  of  that  day.  Had  I  pressed  it  to  a  vote,  its  fate  would,  I  doubt 
not,  have  been  just  the  same  as  that  of  the  amendment  itself,  which  was  rejected 
by  the  followers  of  Lord  North,  by  a  vote  of  243  to  8G,  in  the  third  year  of  the 
American  war.  That  war,  sir,  as  we  all  know,  went  on  for  four  years  longer,  and 
ended  at  last  in  the  eternal  separation  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies  from  the  British 
Crowm.  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  no  similar  result  shall  be  the  issue  of  our 
present  unhappy  war. 

"  But  by  speedy,  honorable  peace,  conciliation,  and  adjustment  alone,  in  my 
deliberate  and  most  solemn  judgment,  now  as  from  the  very  first,  can  that  calamity 
be  averted." 


• 

504  VALLA^'DIC; ham's    SPEECHES. 


INVASION. ARRKST. TflE    TJME3. 


The  following  are  extracts  from  a  very  Imperfect  and  nnrevised  report  of  a  speech  delivered  by 
Mr.  Vallandiohau,  at  Newark,  New  Jersey,  February  14,  1863 :  , 

I  SUSPECT  that  among  the  other  miserable  dreams — disappointed  nightmare 
risions  that  hang  in  vapory  fumes  around  the  imagination  of  the  Secretary  of 
State — it  has  occurred  to  him  that  if  he  could  only  invite  the  Southern  Army 
in  force  into  Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey,  and  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  he  would 
be  able  to  galvanize  the  dead  carcass  of  this  war.  (Laughter.)  Well,  if  they 
invade  us,  we  will  write  for  them  precisely  the  history  they  have  been  writing 
for  us  for  the  last  few  months.  The  Miami  Valley  will  have  some  two  or  three 
Bull  Runs  with  which  to  adorn  their  history,  the  State  of  New  Jersey  will  also 
have  several  battles,  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  allude  to,  only  the  picture  will 
be  reversed.  But  I  think  there  is  wisdom  enough  in  the  men  who  control  the 
Southern  Government  not  to  accommodate  the  Secretary  of  State.  It  has  been 
proclaimed  that  it  never  was  their  purpose  to  invade  the  Northern  States.  It  is 
very  true,  that  if  this  war  is  kept  up,  battles  fought,  no  relenting  spirit,  no  pros- 
pect of  peace,  no  sound  of  concord  to  reach  their  ears,  they  may  some  day  attempt 
that  invasion.  • 

*■*  *  *  *  *  *  *  **  4: 

T^ve  any  of  you  known  that  most  terrible  of  all  sensations,  haunting  you, 
walking  with  you,  resting  with  you, — the  apprehension  of  being  arrested? 
Before  God.  I  never  have  been  guilty  of  any  offence  against  the  laws  of  my  coun- 
try, or  the  laws  written  by  a  higlier  power — except  tlirough  the  frailties  of  human 
nature — but  I  have  learned,  in  my  own  person,  what  of  all  sensations  is  the  most 
horrible  and  oppressive — the  fear  of  arrest.  I  felt  it  when,  night  after  night,  in  my 
ovnx  house — which  one  of  the  noblest  of  Englishmen  told  me,  which  my  father  told 
me,  which  the  Constitution  of  my  country  told  me,  was  my  castle — when  night 
after  night,  from  the  setting  of  the  sun ;  from  the  hour  when  the  gray  starlight 
gathered  around  that  which  ought  to  have  been  a  peaceful  and  undisturbed  home, 
until  day  dawned,  I  watched  in  suspense  for  every  footfall  upon  the  pavement, 
and  the  sound  of  every  carriage  that  rumbled  along  the  street,  lest  some  execrable 
minion  should  dare  attempt  to  cross  the  threshold  of  that  castle.  And  it  was  not 
In  Austria  that  that  happened — not  in  Russia,  not  in  old  Rome,  under  Nero  or 
Caligula,  but  in  the  United  States  of  America,  under  Abraham  Lincoln.  (Great 
applause.)  As  a  man  brought  up  in  the  Christian  religion,  under  the  ancient  re- 
gime,  when  the  gospel  was  preached,  I  should  forgive  transgres.sors,  but  I  feel  in 
regard  to  the  authors  of  these  acts,  that  I  could  join  m  the  exclamation  of  Queen 
ElizaV.)eth,  when  one  who  had  done  her  a  sore  wrong  asked  forgiveness,  "'May 
God  forgive  you,  for  I  cannot  1"  Forgive  I  Yes,  if  you  cease  how  we  will  be 
satisfied  to  resort  to  the  judicial  tribunals  to  avenge  tb.ose  wrongs. .  Forget!  No, 
not  while  memory  holds  a  seat  in  this  distracted  globe,  shall  the  vigQs  of  those 
terrible  nights  be  forgotten  I  And  if  even  the  apprehension  of  arrest  fell  and 
scorched  thus,  like  a  destroying  fire,  on  the  heart  of  one  not  subjected  to  it,  what 
•were  yours,  ye  (turning  to  the  late  State  prisoners  on  the  platform)  who  felt  the 
horrors  of  Fort  Lafayette  and  Fort  Warren  ? 
*********** 

We  Uve  in  extraordinary  time.  I  do  not  believe  that  in  all  history  so  grand  an 
epoch  has  ever  occurred  ;  so  many  people  and  so  vast  a  theatre  engaged  in  civil 
•war,  with  armies  so  great,  expenditures  so  enormous,  taxation  so  burdensome. 


SUPPLEMENT.  565 

In  the  history  of  the  past,  just  in  proportion  to  the  exigencies  of  the  time,  have 
men  arisen  who  have  been  able  to  meet  them.  On  every  occasion  hitherto,  tho 
Providence  of  God  has  ordained  that  men  should  be  found  fit  to  deal  with  the 
necessities  of  every  nation. '  Has  it  been  so  now?  Where  are  our  Statesmen? 
Not  m  the  person  of  the  President,  or  the  members  of  his  Cabinet.  Not  in  the 
Senate;  not  in  the  House  of  Representatives;  not  among  your  State  Executives 
— certainlj-  not  previous  to  the  first  of  January.  Where  are  the  men  of  might,  the 
lofty  in  intellect,  the  grand  in  soul?  (A  voice^  "in  the  workshops.")  Ay,  there 
are  the  men ;  but  the  instrument  is  wanted.  Tlie  worlcman  must  have  the  im- 
plement of  his  trade  or  he  cannot  labor.  The  people  must  have  a  statesman  equal 
to  the  occasion,  or  the  nation  is  lost.  Where  are  your  generals?  We  had  one,  but 
they  banished  him.  (Applause.)  It  was  asked  in  the  Senate  the  other  day  what 
victory  he  ever  won.  The  reply  was,  what  battle  did  he  ever  lose  ?  When  we 
remember  the  history  of  tliis  war,  it  was  the  most  pertinent  answer  tliat  could 
have  been  made.  We  have  been  fortunate  when  we  did  not  lose  battles  !  Where 
are  the  men  !  A  great  nation  is  in  the  very  throes  and  agonies  of  revolution,  and 
no  man  has  arisen,  with  power  in  his  hand,  stretched  forth  to  save  this  people. 
It  is  what  we  most  need  now,  and  it  ought  to  be  the  prayer  of  every  true  patriot 
and  lover  of  his  country,  that  God,  in  his  Providence,  would  raise  up  a  man  to  lead 
this  people  through  the  red  sea  of  blood,  to  the  promised  land  of  peace. 

"  Give  us  the  nerve  of  steel, 
The  arm  of  fearless  might, 
The  strength  of  will  that  is  ready  still, 
To  battle  for  the  right. 

"  Give  us  the  cle.ir,  cold  brain, 

That  is  never  aslee])  nor  dozing; 
But  stronger  ever  by  bold  endeavor 
To  wake  up  the  world  from  its  prosing. 

"  Oh !  give  ns  the  nerve  of  steel, 
The  hand  of  fearless  might, 
The  heart  that  can  love  and  feel. 
And  the  head  that  is  always  right. 

"Ourfoemen  are  now  abroad. 

And  the  land  is  filled  with  crimes, 
But  our  prayer  to  th'  Omnipotent  God, 
Oh!  give  us  the  men  for  the  times ! " 

A  part  of  the  foregoing  speech  having  been  grossly  misre[)orted  in  some  of  the  papers,  was,  in 
that  form  read,  a  few  days  afterwards,  in  the  House  of  Rcpresentati\'es,  by  Mr.  Thaudetjs 
Stevex.s.  as  follows:  "It  is  very  true  that  if  this  war  is  kept  up,  battles  fought,  no  relenting 
spirit,  no  prospect  of  peace,  no  sound  of  peace  to  reach  their  ears,  they  ought  to  be  induced  to 
make  that  invasion. "    Mr.  Vallandigham  at  once  interposed,  saying: 

"  I  hope  the  gentleman  will  give  me  an  opportunity  to  correct  a  very  gross  mis- 
report  contained  in  that  part  of  the  speech  which  he  has  just  read." 

Mr.  Stevens.     I  will  certainlj',  for  it  is  a  very  grave  charge. 

Mr.  Vallandigham.  It  is  a  very  grave  charge.  I  concur  with  the  gentleman 
from  Pennsylvania  in  that.  I  corrected  it  the  next  day  by  a  card  in  the  New 
York  Trihune.  What  I  did  say  was  this,  that  if  the  Confederates  attempt  to 
invade  us  we  will  write  for  them  precisely  the  history  they  have  been  writing  for 
us  during  the  last  two  years  :  that  we  will  then  be  able  to  give  them  two  or  three 
Bull  Runs  North,  to  adorn  their  history,  in  return  for  what  they  have  given  to 
us.     I  said  further,  in  the  same  connection,   that  if  the  war  went  on  indefinitely, 


56G  vallaistdiotiam's  speeches. 

with  no  prospect  of  peace,  no  so\ind  of  concord,  no  proposition  or  prospect  of  set- 
tlement in  the  future,  they  might  possibly  attempt  to  invade  the  Northern  or 
Western  States  ;  bot  it  never  entered  my  mind,  I  never  conceived  for  a  moment, 
of  such  a  thing  as  to  give  utterance  to  the  sentiment  that  "  they  ought  to  bo 
induced"  to  invade  the  North. 


THE    TRUE    POSITION    AND    DUTY    OF    THE    DEMOCRATIC    PARTY. 

Letter  to  Alfred  Sandeuson,  Esq.,  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania. 

Dayton,  Ohio,  April  24. 1S63. 
My  engagements  in  New  York  precluded  me  from  accepting  your  invitation,  and 
addressing  you  previous  to  my  return  West.  I  expect  to  go  East  about  the  12th 
of  May  or  IGth  of  Juno,  and,  if  I  do,  v.-ill,  if  possible,  visit  Lancaster  going  or 
coming,  and  address  your  Democracy.  Indeed,  it  will  give  me  great  pleasure 
to  comply  with  your  invitation.     Should  I  be  able  tc  come,  I  will  advise  you  in 

time. 

Meanwhile,  let  me  say  that  every  thing  depends  on  keeping  the  Democratic  party 
up  to  the  full  measure  of  principle  and  sound  policy,  true  to  the  Constitution,  faith- 
ful to  the  Union,  steadfast  to  the  Government  which  they  constitute,  and  devoted 
to  liberty  at  the  hazard  of  life  itself.  Truth  aud  reason,  applied  to  these  high  and 
sacred  objects,  are  the  only  powers  or  agencies  left  to  the  Democracy,  and  by  a 
bold  and  manly  use  alone  of  them  can  we  succeed  in  the  elections.  Every  thing 
else  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Abolition  party— the  Administration.  Through  the 
press,  but  es^pecially  by  pubUc  meetings  and  open  and  courageous  organization, 
this  use  is  to  be  made.  Good  men  individually  upon  our  ticket  will  not  be  enough. 
The  people  are  not  now  voting  for  men,  but  for  ideas,  principles,  pohcies.  No 
public  man  is  worth  a  rush  now,  unless  he  represents  something  besides  candi- 
dacy for  an  otfice.  Enthusiasm  is  power— a  greater  power,  especially  among  the 
masses,  among  workingmen  and  a  rural  population,  than  any  agency  which  this 
Administration  can  bring  to  bear,  whether  it  be  corruption  or  force ;  but  there 
can  be  no  popular  enthusiasm  for  any  one,  above  all  just  in  these  times  of  power- 
ful commotion,  unless  he  is  the  embodiment,  or  at  least  a  representative,  of  some 
great  principle  or  cause.  Aud  to  be  effective  it  must  be  antagonistic  to  some 
other  and  opposite  principle  or  cause;  and  the  stronger  and  more  direct  the 
antagonism,  the  better.     This  is  essential  now. 

Last  summer  and  fall  the  Administration  was  unsettled,  ostensibly  at  least,  in 
its  pplicy,  and  its  party  therefore  more  or  less  divided.  Not  so  now.  It  has  a 
policy,  and  means  steadfastly  to  adhere  to  it.  Whoever  supports  the  Administra- 
tion now,  supports  its  policy.  All  apology  for  temporizing  by  the  Democratic  party 
is  utterly  gone.  The  Administration  Abolition  party  is  thoroughly  consolidated, 
and  unquestionably  it  is  now  contending  solely  for  usity  and  a  strong  central- 
ized GOVERNMENT  THROUGH  WAR,  AND,  failing  in  this,  then  disunion.  And  it  will 
rally  to  its  support  all  men  who  from  any  cause,  sentiment,  or  interest,  are  in 
favor  of  either  the  object  or  the  means.     Now  the  direct  antagonism  of  aU  this  is, 

UNION  AND    CONSTITUTIONAL  LIBERTY   THROUGH    AN  HONORABLE   PEACE.      And  What 

nobler  principle  or  idea,  what  hoher  cause  for  the  Democratic  party  to  struggle 
for?  Arguments  and  appeals  without  number,  the  strongest  ever  urged,  can  be 
arrayed  in  its  support— from  religion,  from  philosophy,  from  human  nature,  poli- 
tics, history,  from  the  principles  of  our  form  of  government,  and  from  the  utter 


SUPPLEMENT.  567 

and  inevitable  failure  of  all  other  means  of  securing  that  great  end.  "With  all 
these  agencies  at  our  command,  an  enthusiasm  can  be  evoked  from  the  hearts  of 
the  people,  before  which  all  opposition  will  be  swept  away  as  by  a  consuming 
fire. 


THE    MILITARY    COilMISSION. THE    "  CHARGE    AND    SPECIFICATION  ; 

MAY,   1863. 

The  foUoM-ing  is  a  full  and  exatt  copy  of  the  "  Charge  and  Specification,"  embodying  the  sola 
offence  or  "crime"''  for  which  Mr.  Vallandiquam  was  "  tried"  before  Burnside's  Military  Com- 
mission, at  Cincinnati,  May  6  and  7,  1S63. 

Charge. — Publicly  expres.sing,  in  violation  of  General  Orders  No.  38,  from 
Head-quarters  Department  of  the  Ohio,  sympathy  for  those  in  arms  against  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  and  declaring  disloyal  sentiments  and  opinious, 
with  the  object  and  purpose  of  weakening  the  power  of  the  Government  in  its 
efforts  to  suppress  an  unlawful  rebellion. 

Specification. — In  this,  that  the  said  Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  a  citizen. 
of  the  State  of  Ohio,  on  or  about  the  first  day  of  May,  186;!,  at  3iIount  Vernon, 
Knox  County,  Ohio,  did  publicly  address  a  large  meeting  of  citizens,  and  did  utter 
sentiments  in  words,  or  in  effect,  as  follows,  declaring  the  present  war  "a  wicked, 
cruel,  and  unnecessary  war;"  "a  war  not  being  waged  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union ;"  "a  war  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  out  liberty  and  erecting  a  despot- 
ism;" "a  war  for  the  freedom  of  the  blacks  and  the  enslavement  of  the  whites;" 
stating  "  that  if  the  Administration  had  so  wished,  the  war  could  have  been  honora- 
bly terminated  months  ago;"  that  "  peace  might  have  been  honorably  obtained  by 
listening  to  the  proposed  intermediation  of  France;"  that  "  propositions  by  which 
the  Northern  States  could  be  won  back,  and  the  South  guaranteed  their  rights 
under  the  Constitution,  had  been  rejected  the  day  before  the  late  battle  of  Fred- 
ericksburg, by  Lincoln  and  his  minions,"  meaning  thereby  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  those  under  him  in  authority;  charging  "  that  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  was  about  to  appoint  military  marshals  in  ever}-  district,  to 
restrain  the  people  of  their  liberties,  to  deprive  them  of  their  rights  and  privi- 
leges;" characterizing  General  Orders  No.  38,  from  Head-quarters  Department  of 
the  Ohio,  as  "abase  usurpation  of  arbitrary  authority,"  inviting  his  hearers  to 
resist  the  same,  by  saying,  "  the  sooner  the  people  inform  the  minions  of  usurped 
power  that  they  will  not  submit  to  such  restrictions  upon  their  liberties,  the 
better;"  declaring  "that  he  was  at  all  times,  and  upon  all  occasions,  resolved  to 
do  what  he  could  to  defeat  the  attempts  now  being  made  to  buUd  up  a  monarchy 
upon  the  ruins  of  our  free  government;"  asserting  "  that  he  firmly  believed,  as  he 
said  six  months  ago,  that  the  men  in  power  are  attempting  to  estabUsh  a  despotism 
in  this  country,  more  cruel  and  more  oppressive  than  ever  existed  before." 

All  of  which  opinions  and  sentiments  he  well  knew  did  aid,  comfort,  and 
encourage  those  in  arms  against  the  Government,  and  could  but  induce  in  his 
hearers  a  distrust  of  their  own  Government,  sympathy  for  those  in  arms  against 
it,  and  a  disposition  to  resist  the  laws  of  the  land. 


56S  vallaxdigiiam's  speeches. 


RECEPTION"  AT  WINDSOR,  C.   V,'. 

Soon  after  arriving  at  Windsor,  on  the  24th  of  Anpust,  19G3,  Mr.  VAi.i.AffDiGnAM  was  wel- 
comed by  a  (if  putation  of  citizens  from- Detroit,  to  whom  he  replied  briefly.  A  suramary  of 
his  response  was  published  in  the  Detroit  Free  Press  of  August  '26lh,  as  follows: 

Mr.  Tallaxdioiiam  replied,  thanking  his  fellow-citizens  for  their  kindly  wel- 
come. Ho  said  it  was  gratifying,  personally,  but  much  more  as  a  testimony  lor  the 
great  cause  of  constitutional  liberty.  Very  strange  was  the  spectacle  of  an  Ameri- 
can citizen  in  exile,  receiving  a  visit  from  his  countrymen  upon  foreign  soil  and 
under  the  protection  of  a  foreign  flag,  but  in  sight  of  his  own  country.  "  It  is  in- 
deed," said  Mr.  Y.,  "  my  cour.try,  and  as  dear  to  me  as  when  I  last  trod  its  soil." 
It  was  not  fitting  that  here  he  should  discuss  the  political  questions  of  that  coun- 
try. The  great  issue  at  home  was,  indeed,  common  to  England  and  America.  It 
was  the  question  of  personal  and  political  liberty,  secured  in  the  one  by  Magna 
Charta,  tiic  Petition  of  Right,  the  Statute  of  Habeas  Corpus,  and  the  Bill  of  Rights ; 
and  in  the  other  by  the  guarantees  of  our  State  and  Federal  constitutions.  In  bet- 
ter times  he  would  discuss  them  at  home  with  the  ancient  freedom  of  American 
citizens.  Of  himself,  though  so  cordially  met  and  kindly  referred  to.  he  had  nothing 
to  say.  He  was  nothing;  the  cause  every  thing.  A  great  struggle  was  going  on  in 
the  United  States  to  regain  lost  liberties — freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  and  of 
public  assemblages,  and  to  maintain  free  elections.  He  had  great  faith  in  the  ul- 
timate triumph  of  the  jjeople — faith  in  Providence  and  faith  in  the  race  which,  in 
England  and  America,  had  successfully  supported  their  rights  and  liberties  for  six 
hundred  years.  The  race  would  still  vindicate  itself  in  the  United  States.  The 
right  of  free  election,  and  all  that  preceded  and  was  essential  to  it,  must  be  main- 
tained— peaceably  if  possible,  hut  it  must  be  maintained  at  all  hazards.  He  counselled 
obedience  to  the  Constitution  and  to  all  laws,  and  the  enforcing  of  that  obedience 
by  all  men,  those  in  authority  and  those  not  in  authority.  The  ballot  was  the  true 
and  proper  remedy  in  the  United  States,  for  all  political  wrongs ;  and  it  was  all- 
sufBcient.  Butwuex  the  ballot  is  pexied,  then  the  right  of  revolution  be- 
gins— NOT  the  right  only,  BUT  THE  SACRED  DUTY.  Give  US  a  free  ballot  and  we 
want  no  more.  Through  this  we  will  regain  liberty,  maintain  the  Constitution, 
uphold  the  laws,  and  restore  the  Union  ;  and  thus  we  will  support  the  government 
which  our  fathers  made.  Claiming  the  fullest  right  at  home  to  criticise  and  con- 
demn the  men  and  acts  of  the  administration,  and  meaning  there,  and  at  the  proper 
time,  to  again  exercise  it  to  the  utmost,  he,  yet  on  foreign  soil,  had  no  word  of  bit- 
terness to  speak.  He  would  only  remember  now  that  they  represented  his  coun- 
try, and  forbear. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

THE  UNION 1849, 

Taledictory  as  Editor  of  the  Dayton  Empire,  Jnne  27, 1S49. 

"We  would  stand  or  fall  by  them  now  as  then,  and  throughout  hfe.  Of  the  vital 
importance  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  country  in  general,  and  the  Democratic 
party  in  particular,  of  two,  in  an  especial  manner,  to  these  principles,  every  hour 
has  added  to  our  deep  conviction.  And  we  would  TVTite  them  as  in  the  rock,  upon 
the  hearts  of  our  friends  forever : 

First,  that  which  is  really  and  most  valuable  in  our  American  liberties,  depends 
upon  the  preservation  and  vigor  of  the  Unios  of  these  States  ;  and  thereforck 


SUPPLEMENT.  509 

all  and  every  agitation  in  one  section,  necessarily  generating  counter-agitation  in 
the  other,  ought, /7'o;»  what,  quarter  snevcr  it  wiay  co?ne,  by  every  patriot  and  vvell- 
•wisher  of  his  country,  to  be  "indignantly  frowned  upon,"  and  arrested  ere  it  be 
"too  late." 


NOT    "  FOR    PEACE    BEFORE    THE    UNION." 
Card  to  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer,  August  20,  ISul. 

I  NEVER,  either  in  my  place  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  or  anywhere  else, 
said  any  thing  of  the  kind. 

It  is  a  part  of  that  mass  of  falsehood  created  and  set  afloat  so  persistently  for 
the  last  few  years,  in  regard  to  all  that  concerns  me  ;  and  is  of  the  same  coinage 
ao  that  other  falsehood,  that  I  once  said  that  "  Federal  troops  must  pass  over  my 
dead  body  on  their  way  South" — a  speech  of  intense  stupidity,  which  I  never,  at 
any  time,  in  any  place,  in  any  shape  or  form,  uttered  in  my  life. 

But  now,  allow  mo,  also,  to  say  that  I  am,  for  peace — speedy  and  honorable 
peace-r^ccazwe  I  am  for  the  Union,  and  know,  or  think  I  know,  that  every  hour  of 
warfare  by  so  much  diminishes  the  hopes  and  chances  of  its  restoration.  I  repeat 
with  Douglas:  "War  is  disunion.  War  is  final,  eternal  separation;"  and  with 
Chatham :   "  My  Lords,  you  cannot  conquer  America." 


THE    UNION 1862. 

EemarkB  against  the  Bill  abolishing  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  April  11,  1 S62. 

Had  I  no  other  reason,  I  am  opposed  to  it,  because  I  regard  all  this  class  of 
legislation  as  tending  to  prevent  a  restoration  of  the  Union  of  these  States  as  it 
was,  and  that  is  the  grand  object  to  which  I  look.  I  know  well,  that  in  a  very 
little  while  the  question  will  be  between  the  old  Union  of  these  States — the  Union 
as  our  fathers  made  it — or  some  new  one,  or  some  new  unity  of  government,  or 
eternal  separation — disunion.  To  both  these  latter  I  am  unalterably  End  uncon- 
ditionally opposed.  It  is  to  the  restoration  of  the  Union  as  it  was,  in  17S9,  and 
continued  for  over  seventy  years,  that  I  am  bound  to  tne  last  hour  of  my  political 
and  personal  existence,  if  it  be  within  the  limits  of  possibility,  to  restore  and  main-" 
tain  that  Union. 


SOLDIERS. PAY. PENSIONS. 

Note  to  Dr.  McElwee  October  6  1S62. 

In  reply  to  yours  of  yesterday,  I  have  to  say  that  I  supported  all  the  measures 
in  the  last  Congress  looking  to  the  giving  of  invalid  pensions  to  all  soldiers  "  wound- 
ed or  incurring  disability  in  the  mihtary  service."  Upon  a  question  hke  that,  no 
just  or  humane  man  could  hesitate  for  a  moment.  Every  soldier  who  has  per- 
formed service  is  entitled  to  the  pay  and  bounty  promised  him  by  law,  and  all  dis- 
abled in  any  way  during  service  are  entitled  to  pensions  ;  and  I  have  never,  either 
directly  by  vote  or  indirectly  by  refusing  to  vote,  withheld  either,  where  the  ser- 
vice had  been  rendered  or  the  disabihty  incurred ;  nor  would  I  do  so. 


5*70  VALLAXDIGHAJi's    SPEECHES. 


LAWS. RIGHTS. DUTIES. 

Ecniorks  at  Eeception  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  March  13, 18C3. 
It  is  the  determination  of  the  Democratic  party  to  maintain  free  speech,  a  free 
press,  and  a  free  ballot,  at  all  hazards.  I  am  for  obedience  to  all  laws,  and  for  re- 
quiring the  men  in  power  to  obey  tliem.  I  would  try  all  qiiestions  of  Constitution 
and  law  before  the  Courts,  and  then  enforce  the  decrees  of  the  Courts.  I  am  for 
trying  all  political  questions  by  the  ballot.  I  would  resist  no  law  by  forc-e,  but 
would  endure  almost  every  other  wrong  as  long  as  free  discussion,  free  assem- 
blages of  the  people,  and  a  free  ballot  remain,  but  the  moment  they  are  attacked, 
I  would  resist.  "We  have  a  right  to  change  Administrations,  policies,  and  parties, 
not  by  forcible  revolution,  but  by  the  baUot-box ;  and  this  right  must  bo  main- 
tained at  all  hazards. 


THE    SANITARY    COMMISSION. 

"WixDsoE,  C.  W.,  December  16, 1863. 
Geo.  McLAUGnLiN,  Esq.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio: 

Sir  : — Yours  of  the  11th,  requesting  from  me  an  autograph  letter,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Sanitary  Commission,  has  been  received,  and  I  cheerfully  comply. 

The  object  of  the  Commission  is  one  of  mercy.  It  is  a  charity  truly  Christian, 
to  visit  the  sick,  to  heal  the  wounded,  to  minister  to  the  maimed,  to  comfort  the 
afflicted,  to  reheve  the  prisoner,  to  clothe  the  naked,  to  feed  the  hungry,  to  give 
drink  to  them  who  are  adurst,  to  cheer  the  widow  and  the  fatherless,  to  save 
human  life,  to  alleviate  human  suffering,  and  thus  to  restore  some  part  of  that 
which  war  always  so  largely  subtracts  from  the  sum  of  human  happiness.  That 
all  tliis  is  to  be  wrought  out  on  behalf  of  those  or  the  families  of  those  who  brave 
wounds  and  death  with  heroic  courage,  upon  the  mam-  battle-fields  of  this  most 
sorrowful  of  wars,  gives  but  still  more  of  value  to  the  merciful  purpose.  The  Com- 
mission, if  justly,  fairly,  with  integrity  and  without  partiality,  it  shall  perform  its 
pious  duties,  will  prove  itself  wortliy  of  the  noble  praise  bestowed  by  Burke  upon 
the  benevolent  Howard. 


SELF-DEFENCE. PROTECTION. REPRISALS.* 

"Windsor,  C.  "W".,  JfarcJi  T,  1864. 
Messrs.  Hubbard  &  Brother,  Dayton,  Ohio: 

Gentlemen: — I  read,  several  days  ago,  the  telegraphic  announcement  of  the 
"  riddling"'  of  the  Empire  office  by  "  furloughed  soldiers."  I  offer  you  no  sym- 
pathy, for  that  will  avail  nothing  now  or  hereafter.  I  do  express  to  you  my  pro- 
found regret  that  you  were  not  prepared  to  inflict  on  the  spot,  and  in  tlie  midst  of 
the  assault,  the  complete  punishment  which  the  assailants  deserved;  but  am  grati- 
fied to  learn  that  some  of  them  did  soon  after  receive  their  deserts.  But  these 
cowardly  acts  cannot  always  be  guarded  against.  And  they  do  not  primarily  come 
from  the  "  soldiers."     There  is,  therefore,  but  one  remedy  for  past  and  preventa- 

*This  letter,  differing  frmn  Mr.  ViLLANDionAM's  uniform  and  repeated  previous  teachings,  ma7 
be  regarded  as  a  recognition  by  him.  of  .the  melancholy  fact  that  we  have  at  lii3t  reached  that 
point  in  the  "  Great  American  Itevolution  of  1S61."  where  the  protection  of  Constitution  and  law 
being  no  longer  enforced  by  e.xecutive  or  judicial  authority,  we  are  obliged  to  fall  back  upon  our 
natural  rights,  not  in  revenge,  but  for  security. 


A 


SUPPLEMENT.  571 

tive  of  future  injuries ;  and  that  is,  instant,  summary  and  ample  reprisals  upon  the 
persons  and  property  of  the  men  at  home,  who,  by  language  and  conduct,  are  always 
inciting  these  outrages.  No  legal  nor  military  punishment  is  ever  inflicted  upon  the 
immediate  instruments.  Retaliation,  therefore,  is  the  only  and  rightful  remedy  in 
times  like  these.  1  speak  advisedly,  and  recommend  it  in  all  cases  hereafter.  It 
is  of  no  avail  to  announce  the  falsehood  that  "  both  parties  condemn  it,"  after  the 
destruction  has  been  consummated.  The  time  has  gone  by  for  obedience  without 
protection.  I  speak  decided  language ;  but  the  continual  recurrence  of  these  out- 
rages— frequently  attended  with  murder,  and  always  without  redress — demands 
it.  They  must  be  stopped,  let  the  consequences  be  what  they  may.  Reprisals  in 
such  cases  are  now  the  only  way  left  for  a  return  to  law  and  order. 


LATE,  GRUDGING,  AND  IMPERFECT  JUSTICE. 

The  following  appeared  in  the  New  York  Tribune  just  after  the  Ohio  election  in  October, 
1863.  Mr.  Greeley  is  mistaken  as  to  Mr.  Vallaxdigham's  hirth-plaee.  His  fathers,  for  several 
generations,  were  born  in  Virginia:  he  himself  in  Ohio.  He  is  in  error  also  as  to  Mr.  V.'s  being 
a  "'devotee  of  the  Slave  Power,"  etc.     Upon  this  he  has  spoken  for  himself: 

"  Mr.  C.  L.  Vallandigham  is  very  generally  regarded  by  unconditional  Unionists 
as  a  worse 'man  than  our  Governor  Seymour,  and  the  trimming,  balancing,  see- 
sawing politicians  of  whom  he  is  the  most  conspicuous.  "We  non-concur  in  this 
estimate.  '  Yal.'  is  a  devotee  of  the  slave  power,  mistakes  slavery  for  the  Con- 
stitution, and  is  as  wrong-headed  as  a  man  can  be ;  but,  for  a  Copperhead  aspirant 
in  these  days,  we  consider  him  unusually  honest.  He  never  pretended  to  desire  or 
favor  'a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war;'  for  he  has  from  the  onset  not  only  de- 
tested and  execrated  the  war  for  the  Union,  but  has  frankly  and  faithfully 
declared  it.  *  *  *  *  He  does  not  ivant  the  Union  divided.  *  *  *  No  one 
can  seriously  doubt  that,  had  he  remained  as  he  was  born,  a  resident  of  a  slave 
State,  he  would  have  been  a  zealous  fighting  rebel;  his  migration  to  Ohio  was  a 
blunder,  for  which  not  he  but  his  father  is  responsible." 


572  YALLAXDIGIIAil's   SPEECHES. 


PERSONAL  NOTICES. 

The  following  notices  of  Mr.  Vallandigham,  of  various  dates,  are  inserted  as 
giving  a  more  correct  idea  of  his  person,  manners,  chaiacter,  etc.,  than  any  more 
formal  description  could  convey. 

AS  A  MEMBER  OF  THE  OHIO  LEGISLATURE*,  1845-1847. 
Ohio  Statesman,  December  25,  1S45,  then  edited  by  C.  C.  IIazewell,  now  of  Boston. 
This  Report  (on  the  Morgan  County  contested  election)  is  from  the  pen  of 
Mr.  Vallaxdigham,  the  young  but  most  able  member  from  Columbiana.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  clear,  logical,  and  convincing  arguments  that  it  has  ever  fallen  to 
our  lot  to  read,  and  should  be  circulated  in  all  parts  of  the  State.  It  cannot  fail  to 
carry  conviction  to  every  impartial  mind,  and  to  raise  the  reputation  of  its  author 
to  a  very  high  point  indeed.  Columbiana  may  vrell  be  proud  of  her  young  member, 
who  has  already  achieved  for  himself  an  enviable  name  as  a  debater,  for  skill  and 
fairness,  and  as  a  writer  at  once  powerful  and  dignified.  He  is  of  that  class  of 
men  whom  the  Ohio  Democracy  need,  to  place  them  in  the  position  whicli  they 
occupied  a  few  years  ago,  and  w'hich  has  been  lost,  not  through  any  dislike  of  the 
people  to  Democratic  principles,  but  because  the  party  has  been  unhappily  identified 
"with  the  names  and  character  of  two  or  three  detestable  individuals,  whose  utter 
worthlessness  was  enough  to  sink  any  party.  In  Mr.  Vallandigham  we  have 
such  a  man  as  the  Democracy  of  Ohio  can  rely  upon,  one  who  does  not  think  it 
necessary  to  disgrace  great  talents  by  buffoonery  and  immoraUty,  in  order  to 
achieve  a  sudden  notoriety.  A  gentleman  and  a  scholar,  and  thoroughly  attached 
to  the  principles  of  Democracy,  we  can  always  rely  upon  him  for  good  services, 
especially  when  grave  and  important  matters  come  up,  requiring  the  action  of  the 
highest  order  of  mind,  to  have  them  properly  discussed  and  settled. 


Written  for  the  Cincinnati  Signal,  by  W.  M.  C,  March,  1S47. 

Mr.  C.  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Columbiana  County,  has  been,  for  two  successive 
years,  the  representative  of  his  county  in  the  popular  branch  of  the  Legislature. 
He  entered  that  body  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-five  years,  and  although  the 
youngest  member,  came  to  be  regarded,  long  before  the  close  of  the  session,  as  the 
leader  of  his  party  on  the  floor,  which  position  he  maintained  during  the  late  short 
and  active  session.  Mr.  Vallandigham  is  a  native  of  the  State,  a  fact  not  un- 
worthy of  remark  when  we  reflect  that  considerably  less  than  one-fifth  of  the 
members  of  the  present  assembly  are  ''to  the  manner  born,"  and  that  among  the 
members  we  recognize  no  "  men  of  mark,"  Mr.  Cutler  and  Mr.  Vallandigham 
excepted. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  is  slight  in  figure  and  altogether  youthful  in  appearance. 
Ordinarily  his  manner  is  in  keeping  with  his  appearance,  although  he  is  not  want- 
ing in  dignity  when  the  occasion  demands  it.  Courtesy  and  urbanity  in  public  as 
well  as  private  life,  have  secured  for  him  the  esteem  of  all  who  know  him,  without 
regard  to  party,  while  his  abilities  have  commanded  their  respect.  His  remark 
made,  somewhat  in  the  tone  of  reproof,  after  some  characteristic  explosion  on 
the  part  of  a  turbulent  member,  that  "  he  hoped  he  should  ever  so  be  a  Democrat 
as  not  to  forget  that  he  was  a  gentleman,"  is  still  remembered.  Indeed,  in  all  of 
Mr.  Vallandigham' 3  intercourse  with  men,  there  is  evinced  a  frankness  and  au 


surrLEMEXT.  573 

obliging,  generous  feeling  which,  above  all  otlicr  traits  of  character,  create  and 
retain  warm  personal  friends.  In  this  respect  there  is  no  young  man  in  Ohio 
more  fortunate.  His  friends  and  w^ell  wishers  are  found  among  all  parties,  and 
their  name  is  Legion Industry  and  application  Mr.  Vallaxdigha.m  pos- 
sesses to  an  eminent  degree.  As  a  consequence,  he  is  an  invaluable  member  on 
whichever  legislative  committee  he  is  placed — in  short,  he  is  an  excellent  business 
man,  and  has  all  the  requisites  of  a  good  lawyer.  Not  that  I  would  be  under- 
stood as  implying  that  he  is  a  mere  man  of  fiict,  another  name  for  a  dull  man  and 
a  plodder.  Far  from  it.  Mr.  Vallandighaji  is  a  man  of  free — rather'  too  free — 
fancy;  one  wdiich  sometimes,  not  often,  carries  him  quite  so  high  that  his  liearers 
fear  lest,  Icarus-like,  he  maj  come  down  wingless  to  the  earth  again.  He  always 
manages,  however,  to  alight  from  these  flights,  with  more  or  less  grace,  a  matter 
of  no  little  difficulty,  even  witli  the  most  expert  cloud-rovers. 

Mr.  Vallandighaji  is  decidedly  one  of  tlie  most  promising  young  men  in  Ohio, 
and,  if  he  possesses  the  requisite  mental  ballast,  will  attain  a  high  position  in  tho 
State,  to  wliich  he  is  now  an  honor  and  an  ornament. 


Mr.  Vallandigham's  renomination  for  the  Ohio  House  of  Eepresen.tatlves,  in  June,  1816,  was 
thus  noticed  by  the  organ  of  the  Whig  party  of  Carroll  county,  Ohio : 

"  Mr.  Vallaxdigham  was  a  faithful  and  attentive  member  of  the  last  Legis- 
lature. His  gentlemanly  dej^ortment  and  pleasing  manners  secured  him  the  respect 
and  confidence  of  all  parties ;  whilst  his  attention  to  business  and  generous  senti- 
ments were  an  honorable  exception  to  the  ribaldry  which  marked  many  of  his 
partisans  in  the  House ;  and  unless  the  Whigs  of  Columbiana  County  conclude 
that  they  shall  be  represented  in  the  next  General  Assembly,  we  shall  be  pleased 
to  see  him  elected." 


HIS    SPEECH     OF    JANUARY    14,    1863. 

The  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Cincinnati  Gazette,  a  decided  political 
opponent  of  Mr.  Yallandigham,  describing  the  speech,  and  the  effect  of  its  de- 
livery, relates  that  the  most  busy  and  active  members,  such  as  Stqvens,  Colfax, 
Wickliffe,  Lovejoy,  Olin,  and  others,  dropped  every  thing  else,  and  obtained  the 
best  positions  for  hearing.  An  effort  w^as  making  to  get  a  joint  session  of  the 
military  and  naval  committees  to  consider  a  matter  to  wdiich  attention  had  been 
called  by  the  Secretary  of  War.  Only  three  out  of  fourteen  members  could  be  got 
to  the  committee-room  in  the  course  of  an  hour.  Fven  the  reporters  in  the  gal- 
levies  wake  up ;  the  seats  are  all  crowded ;  the  ladies  cease  their  eternal  chatter- 
ing, and  lean  forward  to  catch  every  word. 

Describing  his  manner  of  commencing,  the  same  writer  says : 

"  He  begins  boldly,  defiantly,  even;  and  is  speedily  preaching  the  very  doctrino 
of  devils.  '  Ton  can  never  subdue  the  Seceded  States.  Two  years  of  fearful  ex- 
perience have  taught  you  that.  "Why  carry  on  tlie  war?  If  you  persist,  it  can 
only  end  in  final  separation  between  the  North  and  South.  And  in  that  case,  be- 
lieve it  now,  as  you  did  not  my  former  warnings,  the  whole  Northwest  will  go  with 
the  South!' 

"  He  waxes  more  earnest  as  he  approaches  this  key-note  of  his  harangue?,  and 
with  an  energy  and  force  that  makes  every  hearer — as  his  moral  nature  revolts 
from  the  bribe — acknowledge,  all  the  more,  the  splendid  force  with  wliich  tho 


574:  vallaxdigham's  speeches. 

tempter  urges  bis  cause,  with  flashing  eye  and  livid  features  and  extended  hand 
trembling  with  the  passion  of  his  utterance,  he  hurls  the  climax  of  his  threatening 
argument  again  upon  the  Republican  side  of  the  House  :  'Believe  me,  as  you  did 
not  the  solemn  warning  of  years  past,  the  day  which  divides  (he  North  from  the 
South,  the  selfsame  day  decrees  eternal  divorce  between  the  West  and  the  East.'' 

"  The  group  of  Republicans  standing  in  the  open  space  before  the  Clerk's  desk, 
increases ;  they  crowd  down  the  aisles  among  the  Opposition  and  cluster  around 
the  speaker  as  he  resumes :  '  Sir,  our  destiny  is  fixed.  There  is  not  one  drop  of 
rain  which,  descending  from  the  heavens  and  fertilizing  our  soil,  causes  it  to  yield 
an  abundant  harvest,  but  flows  into  the  Mississippi,  and  there  mingling  with  the 
waters  of  that  mighty  river,  finds  its  way,  at  last,  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  And  we 
must  and  will  follow  it  with  travel  and  trade — not  by  treat}',  but  by  right — freely, 
peaceably,  and  without  restriction  or  tribute,  under  the  same  government  and  flag, 
to  its  home  in  the  bosom  of  that  gulf  It  is  eloquently  spoken,  and  none  are  more 
willing  to  concede  it  than  his  opponents. 

"  He  has  spoken  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  accomplished  the  rare  feat  of  com- 
pelling the  closest  attention  of  the  most  disorderly  delibertitive  body  in  the  world, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  There  is  then  a  gradual  relaxation,  a  sudden  hum- 
ming of  conversation  again  on  the  floor  and  through  the  galleries.  The  Democrats 
and  Border-State  men,  with  faces  wreathed  in  smiles,  crowd  around  their  champion 
with  their  congratulations.  At  a  single  step,  the  shunned  and  execrated  Vallan- 
digham  has  risen  to  the  leadership  of  their  party.  Deny  it,  as  some  of  them  still 
may,  henceforth  it  is  accomplished." 

The  "Washington  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald  said : 

"  The  speech  of  Mr.  Vallandigham  in  the  House,  to-day,  produced  a  profound 
sensation.  It  was  bold  and  able.  The  Republican  side,  also,  listened  intently 
to  it." 

The  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce  wrote : 

"Mr.  Yallandioham's  speech  of  to-day  commanded  marked  attention,  and  those 
who  do  not  agree  with  him  in  policy,  give  him  credit  for  great  abilities.  He  de- 
clared himself  for  the  Union  as  it  was,  wanted  Massachusetts  to  come  back  where 
she  was  in  other  days,  and  in  the  event  of  a  final  separation,  prophesied  that  the 
Northwest  would  go  with  the  South,  leaving  the  Northeast  'in  the  cold;'  but  still 
he  battled,  with  great  force,  for  a  united  country." 

The  correspondent  of  the  Boiton  Herald,  describing  the  speech  and  the  effect  of 
its  delivery,  .says: 

"  The  long-expected  speech  of  Yallaxdigham  was  delivered  in  the  presence  of 
a  large  audience  in  the  galleries,  and  an  unusual  attendance  on  the  floor.  As  soon 
as  he  arose  to  address  the  House,  a  large  number  of  members  of  all  parties 
gathered  about  him.  His  method  of  speaking  is  very  attractive.  Added  to  fine 
appearance  of  person,  he  has  a  good  voice  and  gesture,  and  always  speaks  without 
notes.  To-day  he  was  bold  and  determined;  and  while  his  views  maybe  regarded 
'as  words  of  brilliant  and  polished  treason,'  it  was  universally  admitted  to  have 
been  a  most  able  speech  from  that  stand-point.  He  spoke  for  an  hour  and  a  half 
without  interruption  of  any  kind,  and  had  most  attentive  listeners.  I  might  add, 
that  Yallandigham's  great  coolness  amid  the  most  heated  discussions,  is  one  of  hia 
peculiarities,  and  gives  him  decided  advantages  over  more  impassioned  antago- 
nists." 


SUPPLEMENT.  070 

Of  a  similar  character  is  the  notice  of  the  "Washington  correspondent  of  the  St, 
Louis  liepublican,  who  writes : 

"  The  peace  speech  of  this  Ohio  Congressman,  in  the  House,  yesterday,  was  re- 
ceived with  remarlvable  and  respectful  attention  by  the  Republicans;  and  it  is 
significant,  as  the  first  occasion  when  that  party  in  Congress  calmly  listened  to 
the  semi-secession  doctrines  of  Vallandigham,  or  any  other  peace  man.  It  also 
attracts  attention  from  every  other  quarter,  and,  to-day,  is  the  general  subject  of 
comment  in  the  city." 

The  Boston  Courier  thus  spoke :  , 

"This  is  an  extremely  able  and  a  very  honest  speech.  No  one  can  read  it  and 
help  believing  that  Mr.  Vallandigham  is  a  brave  and  honest  man ;  and  the  speech 
itself  affords  irresistible  evidence  that  it  is  his  unfaltering  devotion  to  the  Union 
and  the  Constitution  which  has  led  those  less  loyal  to  stigmatize  him  as  a  seces- 
sionist and  a  traitor.  His  opinions  will  answer  for  tliemselves :  but  for  its  histori- 
cal value  and  its  strong  grasp  of  the  future,  the  speech  ought  to  liave  the  widest 
circulation." 

The  Philadelphia  Constitutional  Union  tlins  refers  to  it: 

"The  speech  of  this  distinguished  statesman  and  heroic  defender  of  the  Consti- 
tution, which  we  present  in  full  to-day,  is  the  crowning  eflbrt  of  his  public  life. 
It  rises  above  the  mere  cant  and  humbug  of  present  popularity,  into  the  clear  and 
comprehensive  realm  of  unselfish  statesmanship,  and  discusses  the  exciting  and 
momentous  topics  of  the  day  with  that  measure  of  candor  which  their  importance 
demands." 

The  Republican  press  limited  its  denunciations  to  the  sentiments  of  the  speech, 
and  no  paper  whose  opinions- the  public  respect,  denied  its  great  power  and  merit 
as  a  production  of  eloquence  and  logical  skill.  Even  Forney,  in  the  Washington 
Chronicle,  pronounced  it  a  ^^  logical  and  powerful  speech.^' 

The  Cincinnati  Enquirer  said : 

"No  speech  has  been  made  in  Congress  for  years  that  has  produced  so  great  an 
effect  in  political  circles,  has  been  so  universally  admired  for  surpassing  ability,  for 
genuine  and  manly  patriotism,  for  its  wise  statesmanship,  as  that  of  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham. It  is  a  valuable  and  undying  contribution  to  American  Congressional 
eloquence,  and  will  raise  its  author  to  a  high  place  among  the  greatest  men  of  the 
country.  "We  do  not  know  of  a  speech  made  by  any  of  our  eminent  statesmen 
that  has  received  higher  praise  or  been  more  souglit  for." 

The  Columbus  Crisis,  edited  by  Governor  Medart,  said : 

"This  is  no  ordinary  speech — made  by  no  ordinary  man,  and  under  circum- 
stances the  most  remarkable  which  ever  overtook  any  nation  or  people.  It  will 
be  well  if  tliis  nation  ponders  seriously  and  with  judgment  over  the  words  of  wis- 
dom and  burning  eloquence  which  run  through  every  paragraph,  sentence,  and 
line. 

"  The  speech  of  Cato,  in  the  Roman  Senate,  warning  the  people  against  the 
designs  of  Cesar  upon  the  liberties  of  the  Roman  people,  contained  not  more 
truthful  anl  thrilling  interest  to  that  great  people  about  to  be  sacrificed  at  the 
shrine  of  ambition,  than  does  this  speech  of  the  member  from  the  Dayton  district, 
but  the  true  representative  of  the  whole  people,  of  all  the  States,  and  the  nation  as 
It  was,  collectively." 


576  vallaxdigham's  speecites. 


AFTER  HIS  ARREST— 1863. 

TIME  ox  VALLAXDIGHAM. 
From  the  Springjiclii  Republican  (Administration  paper),  May,  1863. 
Clemext  L.  V'allaxdigham  has  written  from  his  place  of  confinement  to  make 
an  appeal  to  all  Democrats,  to  his  coimtry,  and  to  time,  to  vindicate  his  cause 
against  unjust  men.  The  last  of  these  invocations  is  repeated  with  an  earnestness 
■which  indicates  a  sincere  and  affecting  belief  that  futurity  will  restore  his  rights 
and  honor  his  memory !  Time  has  indeed  not  seldom  wrought  like  this  to  set  on 
high  forever  those  whom  all  things  at  first  had  agreed  together  to  despise  and 
trample  on.  And  there  has  not  been  wanting  often  to  such,  upon  whom  were  fall- 
ing the  reproaches  of  the  time  then  present,  an  ear  tx)  catch  the  distant,  reversing, 
applauding  verdict  of  the  patient  ages  that  were  following  after.  It  is  impressive 
to  witness  these  changes  in  the  rank  of  men.  The  first  trial  closes,  and  the  court 
is  declared  to  be  adjourned  without  day,  and  straiglit  there  is  arrayed  a  new  and  a 
more  august  tribunal.  The  places  and  the  men  begin  to  shift.  The  prosecuting  officer 
listens  to  hear  his  own  indictment.  The  culprit  expounds  the  law.  The  Cornish 
Eliot  is  king  in  Whitehall,  and  Charles  Stuart  lives  in  "a  dark  and  smoky  room" 
in  the  tower. 


ox    HIS    NOMIXATIOX    FOR    GOVERXOR JUXE,    1863. 

From  the  Albany  Atlas  and  Ai-gtin. 
It  will  be  noticed  that,  in  the  loud  outcry  of  abuse  which  has  stormed  about  the 
head  of  Yallaxdigham,  not  one  distinct  charge  is  made  against  him.     No  words, 
even,  are  quoted  from  his  speeches  to  convict  him  of  infidelity  to  the  cause  of  the 
Union.     It  is  aU  vague  clamor  and  epithet. 

Young,  accomphshed  in  person  and  in  manners,  he  has  been  called,  also,  ''the 
most  learned  man  in  the  West."  He  is  certainh'  the  most  eloquent.  The  old 
maUgnants  hate  him,  because  of  his  very  elevation  of  character  and  talents. 

From  the  Boston  Pout. 
Mr.  Vallaxdigham  has  high  culture  and  splendid  ability.  He  is  urbane  in 
manners,  sincere  in  his  convictions,  estimable  and  irreproachable  in  private  life, 
a  gentleman  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  because  he  is  an  honest  man.  His  poUtical 
opponents,  much  as  they  differ  from  him,  always  respect  him.  The  hold  he  has 
on  his  constituents  was  seen  in  the  vote  on  his  defeat  in  his  district,  which,  by 
thousands,  was  larger  than  that  which  made  him  a  member  of  Congress. 


From  the  Seneca  Falh  (N.  T.)  UereiUe. 
Tallaxdigham  in  size  is  a  man  of  medium  stature,  and  apparently  about  forty 
years  of  age.  His  address  is  that  of  a  pohshed  and  cultivated  gentleman.  In  con- 
versation he  is  fluent,  easy,  and  gifted,  possessing  all  the  characteristics  of  an 
efficient  and  popular  orator.  He  makes  one  feel  at  home  in  his  presence,  though 
constantly  impressed  with  the  overshadowing  greatness  of  his  mind.  "We  have 
seldom  been  more  disappointed  in  the  appearance  of  a  public  man.  Instead  of  that 
bold,  resolute,  defiant  personal  which  we  had  pictured  to  ourself,  and  which  is 
so  characteristic  of  our  leading  "Western  politicians,  we  found  him  unassuming, 
courteous,  affable,  and  dignified  That  Mr.  Vallaxdigham  is  popular  at  home  and 
among  those  who  know  liim  best,  we  do  not  wonder.  Few  men  possess  a  more 
tiscinating  address,  or  are  better  calculated  lo  win  the  afi'cctions  of  the  people. 


SUPPLEMENT.  577 

AT    NIAGARA   FALLS JULY,    1863. 

Correspondenee  of  the  Xezo  Yoi'k  Xetcs. 

My  card  secured  me  an  immediate  reception,  and  I  was  agreeably  surprised  to 
find  him  in  such  excellent  health  and  spirits.  Never,  in  the  proudest  day  of  his 
power  in  Congress,  had  I  seen  him  more  hopeful  and  tranquil.  His  agreeable  and 
commanding  presence,  Ms  well-rounded,  symmetrical  figure,  clear  complexion, 
expressive  eye,  resolute  mouth  and  chin,  a  forehead  denoting  high  intellectual 
■powers — presented  an  ensemble  that  had  not  suffered  by  its  passage  through 
'•  Dixie,"  and  one  that,  though  it  might  easily  terrify  an  Abolition  general,  almost 
any  other  white  man  would  be  unwilling  to  exchange  for  even  the  Apollo  aspira 
tions  of  the  handsomest  man  in  the  Cabinet  of  the  "Second  Washington,"  who 
banished  him.  Surrounded  by  his  famih',  wife,  and  one  bright-faced  little  boy, 
thus  I  found  the  banished  man. 


-SEPTEMBER,   1863. 
From  the  Cleveland  (Ohio)  Plaindealer. 

We  never  saw  Mr.  Yallaxdigiiaji  before,  and  were  very  favorably  impressed 
with  the  man.  As  we  looked  upon  him,  listened  to  his  conversation,  witnessed 
his  manners,  etc.,  we  could  not  help  thinking,  how  little  he  appeared  like  a  "con- 
vict candidate  for  Governor,"  a  "traitor,"  a  "rebel,"  a  "  secesher,"  a  "copper- 
head," or  a  "butternut." 

While  our  host  was  engaged  in  conversation  with  another  guest,  we  took  (re- 
porter-like) a  hast^',  but  accurate  (also  reporter-like)  inventory  of  the  apartment. 
Mr.  Vallakdigham  occupies  two  rooms  upon  the  second  story — one  a  sleeping 
apartment,  which  opened  out  of  the  little  reception-room  in  which  we  were  sittingr 
One  of  the  reception-room  windows  faced  the  river,  giving  Mr.  Vallaxdighaji  a 
fine  view  of  Detroit,  and  also  of  the  United  States  gunboat  Michigan,  winch  has  lain 
moored  in  the  middle  of  the  stream,  with  its  grim  and  shotted  Dahlgren  bearing 
full  upon  his  bedroom,  for  the  last  four  weeks.  The  latter  gentleman  smiled,  when 
we  alluded  to  the  Michigan — the  fact  of  an  entire  gunboat  being  detailed  to  guard 
one  man's  bedroom  seeming  to  him — as  it  did  to  the  rest  of  u.s — exceedingly 
ludicrous.  The  room  was  plainly  furnished,  containing  a  lounge,  a  few  chairs  and 
two  tables.  Upon  the  tables  was  a  copious  supplj'  of  writing  materials,  a  few 
volumes  of  the  Congressional  Globe,  bundles  of  newspapers,  etc.  From  the  amount 
of  stationery,  we  concluded  that  Mr.  Yallaxdighaii's  epistolary  correspondence 
must  be  extensive. 

Mr.  Vallaxdighaai  is  overrun  with  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  is 
often  obhged  to  lock  his  doors  to  secure  quiet.  In  the  course  of  our  conversation 
we  remarked  that  he  was  probably,  at  times,  troubled  with  ennui.  He  replied  that 
such  was  not  the  case,  as  the  river  abounded  in  excellent  fishing,  and  deer  and 
other  wild  game  could  be  found  in  great  profusion  only  about  ten  miles  from 
Windsor.  Thus — Mr.  Tallaxdighaji  being  an  ardent  admirer  of  field-sports — 
ample  means  were  always  at  hand  wherewith  to  drive  dull  care  away. 

After  a  half  hour's  call  we  took  our  departure,  feeling  richly  repaid  for  our  visit 
to  the  great  exile,  and  also  thoroughly  impressed  with  the  idea  that  no  amount  of 
senseless,  brutal  Abolition  abuse  could  dispel  the  favorable  impression  that  we  had 
formed  of  Clement  L.  Yallandighaii. 
37 


D( 


8  VALLAXDIGHxVil's    SPEECHES. 


From  the  Jiome  (S.  Y.)  Sentinel. 

The  picture  of  Vallaxdigiiam  Avlilch  bangs  in  our  o£Bco  gives  an  expression  of 
thought  and  care  wiiich  his  features  assume  onlj  at  long  intervals.  Nevertheless 
the  general  resemblance  was  suflBcient  to  enable  us  in  an  instant  to  detect  which 
of  the  six  or  eight  gentlemen  in  the  room  we  entered  was  the  one  we  sought. 
His  features  are  fuller,  Lis  dark  hair  more  sprinkled  with  graj,  his  manners  more 
frank,  and  movements  more  elastic  and  evidencing  more  vigor  of  health  and  buoy- 
ancy of  spirit  than  we  had  expected.  Vrithout  consciously  crediting  the  statements . 
of  the  Abolition  papers  that  the  exile's  features  were  haggard  and  his  look  down- 
cast, we  had  yet  supposed,  that  his  life  of  hard  intellectual  labor,  and  his  habits 
of  classical  study,  so  evidently  revealed  in  his  published  addresses,  had  given  aa 
austere  and  ascetic  tinge  to  his  appearance  and  manners.  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  realitv. 


From  the  Fond  du  Lac  (Wis.)  Press. 

Ax  accurate  description  of  the  personal  appearance  of  Mr.  Tallaxdigham, 
much  as  it  would  please  our  readers,  we  dare  not  attempt,  except  to  say  that  the 
engravings  or  photographs  that  have  been  published  are  correct,  save  that  he  is  a 
much  handsomer  man  than  they  represent  him  to  be.  lie  is  scarcely  turned  forty 
years  of  age,  and  is  calm  and  dignilied,  though  frank  and  cordial  in  his  manners, 
it  being  impossible  for  any  one  to  feel  the  sUghtest  restraint  in  his  j^resence,  save 
that  which  etiquette  and  good  manners  require.  lie  lives  in  plain  style,  occupying 
only  two  small  rooms,  one  of  which  is  occupied  as  a  sleeping  apartment ;  tlie  other 
serves  both  as  Ubrary  and  reception-room,  being  furnished  with  a  couple  of  tables, 
a  rough  lounge,  and  two  or  three  chairs.  On  the  table  we  noticed  files  of  all  the 
leading  daily  papers,  of  both  political  persuasions,  also  several  standard  v.-orks, 
which,  upon  handling,  we  found  to  bear  indubitable  evidence  of  having  been 
closely  read  and  studied,  as  many  clauses  were  marked,  and  the  margins  of  the 
pages  covered  with  pencillings.  no  doubt  his  own.  No  man,  no  matter  what  his 
poUtics  may  be,  can  see  and  talk  with  ilr.  VALLAXDiGHAii  and  not  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  he  is  a  man  of  great  and  mighty  intellect,  and  that  he  is  honest 
and  conscientious  in  his  views  upon  the  great  questions  which  agitate  the  public 
mind. 

VISIT    OF    THE     STUDEXT3    OF    MICHIGAN    UXIVERSITV,    KOVEMBER,    1863. 

From  the  Hillsdale  (Mich.)  Democrat. 

I  COXFESS  I  was  somewhat  disappointed  in  the  appearance  of  the  man.  I  had 
expected  a  tall,  rather  slim,  and  a  very  proud-looking  man — perhaps  I  may  say, 
fierce  looking,  eccentric  in  manners  and  dress.  But,  on  the  contrary,  I  saw  a  man 
neatly  and  fasliionably  dressed,  with  smiling,  open  countenance,  and  nothing  about 
him  very  forcible  or  striking  save  his  eye.  I  think  I  have  never  in  my  whole 
course  of  life  seen  an  eye  which  was  like  it,  in  every  particular, — very  large,  full, 
and  round.  It  is  constantly  betraying  the  thoughts  of  his  mind,  and  the  feehng 
of  his  heart.  It  gleamed  and  sparkled,  and  it  trembled  and  filled  with  a  tear  as 
he  pictured  his  country  in  the  future. 

A  member  of  the  class  addressed  him,  telling  him  of  our  sympathizing  with  him 
in  his  wrongs  as  a  fellow-citizen,  and  of  our  appreciation  of  him  as  a  fearless  and 
conscientious  champion  of  constitutional  rights.  Mr.  Tallaxdxgham  then  arose  and 
essayed  to  speak,  but  could  not ;  his  hp  trembled,  and  a  tear  stood  in  his  eye.     He 


SUPPLEMEXT.  579 

raised  himself  to  his  full  height,  and  looked  around  for  a  single  moment.  That 
moment  I  never  shall  forget.  There  was  not  even  a  breath  drawn — all  was  stiLL 
as  death.  Perhaps  it  was  weakness  in  me ;  if  so,  we  were  all  weak,  for  there 
was  not  a  dry  eje  in  that  large  crowd.  We  saw  before  us  a  soul,  generous, 
noble,  true;  a  soul  whose  every  throlj  was  for  his  country ;  a  soul  that  communed 
with  every  one  present,  conveying  ideas  clothed  in  the  eloquence  of  a  silence  that 
drew  tears  even  from  reporter's  eyes.  "  Young  Gentlemen,"  said  he.  The  spell 
was  broken — his  voice  was  again  under  his  control ;  and  for  a  full  half  hour  we 
sat  there,  never  stirring,  hardly  breathing,  listening  with  every  faculty  alive  to 
catch  the  eloquent  words  which  conveyed  thoughts  almost  inspired.  Perhaps  it 
was  the  occasion,  perhaps  the  emotion  of  the  speaker,  that  had  such  an  effect 
upon  all  present.  I  say,  it  miglit  have  been  this,  that  had  such  an  influence  over 
us  that  we  were  far  from  criticism.  But  I  cannot  attribute  it  wholly  to  this,  but 
in  part  to  a  feeling  of  humbleness  we  all  have  when  in  the  presence  of  a  superior 
mind. 

Long  will  the  participants  in  that  excursion  remember  it.  Long  will  it  be  be- 
fore they  forget  the  mighty  truths  that  a  mighty  man  impressed  upon  them,  in 
the  sincerity,  earnestness,  and  eloquence  of  one  who  felt  their  worth. 


"  vallaxdigham's  birthplace." 

From  the  WelUtiUe  (Ohio)  Patriot. 

As  the  Democratic  procession,  in  Xew  Lisbon,  Ohio,  on  Thursday  last,  passed 
the  residence  of  ilrs.  Yallandigham,  a  comfortable  two-story  brick,  surrounded 
with  shade  trees  and  tast-efully  arranged  shrubbery,  we  observed,  suspended 
across  the  gateway,  a  plain  white  muslin  banner,  bearing  the  simple  inscription 
which  stands  at  the  head  of  this  paragraph ;  and  upon  the  grassy  lawn  near  the 
door  of  the  old  homestead,  now  rendered  dear  to  every  freeman,  stood  the  aged 
mother  of  Clement  L.  Yallaxdigham,  whose  name  and  fame  is  familiar  to  the 
civilized  world  as  the  great  apostle  and  champion  of  human  rights  during  the 
reign  of  terror  and  high-handed  usurpations  of  the  Lincoln  Administration.  To 
Mrs.  v.,  who  is  now  more  than  "  threescore  years  and  ten,"  the  ITth  day  of  Sep- 
tember, 1863,  was  a, proud  day.  What  must  have  been  her  feelings  when  she 
witnessed  that  every  one,  perhaps,  of  that  great  procession  of  freemen,  as  they 
passed  that  plain,  unassuming  banner,  involimtarily  sent  forth  their  hearty  huzzas 
in  honor  of  her  exiled  and  persecuted  son  ?  And  that  procession,  long  and  enthu- 
siastic as  it  was,  was  but  a  moiety  of  the  honest  sons  of  Ohio  whose  inmost  hearts 
beat  in  unison  with  theirs. 

"Vallandigham's  Birthplace!"  What  associations  crowd  around  it? — the  late 
residence  of  an  aged  divine  who  has  long  since  been  gathered  to  his  fathers,  and 
now  residence  of  his  widow,  who,  like  the  mother  of  Washington,  imparted  the 
nobleness  of  her  own  soul  to  her  son.  By  her  instructions  in  morals,  in  religion, 
in  purity  of  purpose  and  honesty  of  intentions,  from  convictions  of  duty,  she 
raised  her  son;  but  httle  did  she  think,  when  bestowing  but  a  motlier's  care  upon 
him,  that  before  he  had  scarcely  reached  the  meridian  of  life,  that  through  official 
persecution,  and  banishment  from  his  native  State  and  the  home  of  his  adoption, 
he  would  become  the  admired  and  beloved  of  milUons. 


580  VALLAXDIGnA^l's    SPEECHES. 


THE    XAME    OF    GLOUY. 
The  following  lines  are  from  the  pen  of  Thomas  IIuBnARD,  of  Ohio. 

WnAT  name  of  glory  do  I  hear  ? 

YailandighaiQ !   Yallandigham  I 
In  accents  ringing  loud  and  clear — 

Yallandigham !  Yallandigham ! 
From  shores  which  rude  Atlantic  laves 
To  calm  Pacific's  slumbering  waves, 
Shout  men  who  spurn  the  gyves  of  slaves — 

Yallandigham !  Yallandigham  I 

A  people  by  their  birthright  free — 

Yallandigham !  Yallandigham ! 
Were  stricken  down,  and  fell  with  thee, 

Yallandigh.im !  Yallandigliam ! 
But  they  will  break  the  tyrant's  chain. 
The  galling  fetters  rend  in  twain, 
And  smite  the  smiter  back  again ! 

Yallandigham !  Yallandigham  1 

Thy  crime  was  loving  Freedom  well — 

Yallandigham !  Yallandigham ! 
The  crime  of  the  old  Switzer  Tell! 

Yallandigham!  Yallandigham! 
Thine  were  such  words  as  Henry  spoke,  ' 
"Which  roused  our  fathers,  till  they  broke 
The  tyrant  monarch's  hated'yoke — 

Yallandigham!  Yallandigham  1 

The  great  warm  heart  of  Burke  is  tliine, 

Yallandigham!  Yallandigham! 
His  love  of  peace — ^that  love  divine — 

Yallandigham!  Yallandigham! 
Illustrious  Chatham  spoke  in  thee, 

And  generous  Barre,  bold  and  free —  >. 

Our  First  Exile  for  Liberty  ! 

Yallandigham!  Yallandigham! 


The  page  of  Sidney's,  Hampden's  fame —  | 

Yallandigham!  Yallandigham!  •? 

WiU  give  to  future  years  thy  name — 
Yallandigham !  Yallandigham  I 

Hark !    Back  to  thine  Ohio  home 

A  million  voices  bid  thee  come  I 

Come  !  Tribunt:  op  the  People,  come  I 
Yallandigham!  Yallandigham  1 


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